RICH LOWRY: Blast ‘em: Get rid of the blocky brutalist buildings that blight our nation’s capital.

[T]he FBI is also departing its HQ, designated by the UK building materials retailer Buildworld as the ugliest building in the United States and the second ugliest in the world.

The moves are in keeping with the spirit of President Donald Trump’s executive order stipulating that federal buildings should “respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.”

That EO should be considered common sense, but has several trigger words for defenders of the architectural status quo, including “traditional,” “classical,” and perhaps foremost of all, “beautify.”

In response, the American Institute of Architects expressed its “strong concerns that mandating architecture styles stifles innovation and harms local communities.”

According to The Nation magazine, Trump’s initiative is part of an agenda to “to make historical architecture on the whole inextricable from Eurocentric white supremacy.”

In short, it’s an unforgivable offense to want a government building to look nice.

Brutalism, with its blocky, minimalist structures made of poured concrete, was a creation of a post-war Europe that wanted to embrace the fresh and new and to economize on rebuilding.

Although the name “brutalism” perfectly captures the aesthetic effect, it actually comes from the French for raw concrete, béton brut.

Amazing – the far-left Nation magazine’s hatred of Trump has them defending the design concepts of a prominent member of Vichy France: Le Corbusier was ‘militant fascist’, two new books on French architect claim.