Musk’s Old Rome inaugural salute signals new Caesar

“Will all new federal buildings look like ancient Rome now?” asks National Public Radio.

Good for NPR for noticing that among President Trump’s “day one” acts is a directive that all federal buildings be designed in the classical style, a.k.a Old Rome style (Neo-Classical in modern parlance).

Trump tried to do this in his first term, but then President Biden rescinded the order. Trump’s rationale for resurrecting the old order goes like this: “To uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government."

Odd that he thinks about self-government and Old Rome together. Granted, Rome started out as a representative democracy, but it became an empire, a centralized imperial authority, with the emperor holding the most power.

So, when it comes to Trump’s “America First” dictum, classical architecture isn’t it. There's nothing American about the classical style because it isn’t ours, it was Old Rome’s.

Yet, the ancient Empire raised its monarchic head at Trump’s post-inaugural rally when Elon Musk gave the Roman salute. You can see the same gesture in the 18th-century painting “The Oath of Horatii” by the neo-classical artist Jacque-Louis David, who was hell-bent on reviving Old Rome during the French Revolution.

The “oath” seen in this painting shows three brothers pledging to defend the state against an attack in Roman history. What was Musk pledging to if not a defense against all who attack Trump? Presumably, that means those who don’t like his style mandated.

One Federal building in contention is the FBI headquarters built in the ‘50s style called Brutalist. The style originated in the UK as part of the post-war reconstruction with an aversion to decoration. This isn’t Trump’s aesthetic.

As we all know, Trump is not a man of quiet taste. He likes shiny things. The three floors of his penthouse Tower apartment not only drip with gaudy 24k gold flourishes but they also glisten with polished pink marble.

So, you can understand his yen for the excesses of the Roman Empire. On “Truth Social” Trump spoke of making the capital city beautiful, and in his opinion, that means grandiose structures with triumphal arch.

You might say Trump has the taste of a monarch for his aversion to modern architecture In 1998, then Prince Charles presented a 75-minute documentary on BBC TV outlining what he saw as heresies in modern architecture.

This included the National Theatre, which the prince deemed “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London.”

But wait, mocking modernism and mooning over classicism by Prince Charles, now king and wannabe king Trump got a pushback before their time. I’m thinking of the angry words of the 19th-century British art critic John Ruskin on the topic of classicism in modern times.

Ruskin called the use of the classical style in modern times "unnatural, unfruitful, unenjoyable and impious, utterly devoid of all life, virtue, honorableness, or power of doing good."

In defense of modern architecture, I submit that it can make the spirit soar as well as a triumphal arch. I’m thinking of the Lever House, a glass tower erected in the ‘50s on Park Avenue in New York.

It was the street's first glasswork, and the open plaza at its base was the street's first pause in an otherwise canyon highland. Glass didn't go with the existing row of stone fronts, but it was liberating to look at it.

I’ll let Le Corbusier, Swiss architect and pioneer of modern architecture, have the last word on the subject of style. He said styles are to architecture what a feather is to a woman's hat. It is sometimes pretty, though not always, and never anything more. President Trump, please copy.