One of Donald Trump’s final acts as the nation’s 45th president was to sign an executive order called “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.” He signed the order on Dec. 18, 2020, but it had been kicking around for many months since it was leaked from the White House last winter as a draft proposal with the more Trumpian title of “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” At the time, it elicited raspberries from architects of all stripes but support from some, possibly most, classicists. Recently, on Feb. 24, Biden issued his own executive order canceling his predecessor’s tip of the hat toward beauty. Last October, as if to nudge Trump toward signing the draft order, the National Civic Art Society, a Washington-based organization that promotes classical architecture and had been involved in generating the draft, released a survey by the Harris Poll. It found that almost three-quarters of Americans preferred classical …