The J. Edgar Hoover Building (Photo by wallyg)

President Donald Trump has an axe to grind with the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and it’s not just the Federal Bureau of Investigations housed within.

Axios reports that, mid-rant about the FBI, the president began griping about the architecture of the building. “It’s one of the brutalist-type buildings, you know, brutalist architecture,” he reportedly said. “Honestly, I think it’s one of the ugliest buildings in the city.”

While the downtown fixture has been named the world’s “ugliest” building worth visiting, a Government Accountability Office report from 2011 called it “functionally obsolete,” and pieces of concrete from the building have been known to fall from heights of 160 feet, plans to move the FBI were scuttled last year after a five-year search that had already reached a shortlist of proposed new locations: Springfield, Virginia and Greenbelt and Landover in Maryland.

Trump wants to keep the FBI in their current location, per Axios, saying that, “This is prime real estate, right on Pennsylvania Avenue. This is a great address. They need to stay there. But it needs a total revamp.”

The president seems to have a soft spot for the street. Aside from being the site of his current digs, the White House, the Trump International Hotel is right across the street from the FBI Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Despite handing over day-to-day management of the hotel to his son, Don Jr., the president has not divested from his ownership of the hotel company (this has also been the source of multiple lawsuits alleging a constitutional violation) and his first dinner out in D.C. once he took office was at the BLT Prime. The hotel has become the go-to for staffers and those looking to hobnob with the administration.

While Trump takes the motorcade down the street to the Trump International Hotel, he hasn’t explored Washington D.C. too far beyond that neighborhood. Otherwise, he may have some other Brutalist buildings fighting for their place on the list of “ugliest buildings in the city” with their use of raw concrete and imposing, bulky design.

ROBERT C. WEAVER FEDERAL BUILDING

The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building. (Photo by Ryan Orr)

Better known as the HUD Building, because it serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, this 1968 structure right by L’Enfant Plaza “embodied the values promulgated by HUD itself [because it] bolstered GSA’s search for architectural excellence, while symbolically demonstrating the federal government’s commitment to urban redevelopment across the nation,” according to the GSA website. Designed by Marcel Breuer, it’s recognized as “the first federal building in the country to utilize precast concrete as the primary structural and exterior finish material, as well as the first fully modular design for a federal office building,” per GSA. It’s just one of the many, many Brutalist buildings inhabited by the federal government, including the departments of Labor, Education, and Energy. It shares more than a passing similarity to the FBI Building, though its curve is far more graceful. While there are no reports of Trump visiting the building, HUD Secretary Ben Carson has appointed his office with a $31,561 dining room set even as he’s said that low-income housing shouldn’t be too comfortable.

HIRSHHORN MUSEUM

The Hirshhorn Museum. (Photo by HeatherMG)

Screw cupcakes, D.C. has its very own “Brutalist doughnut.” The Hirshhorn Museum has embraced the nickname for its building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft and opened in 1974. While Trump has visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture, there are no reports of him stopping by this Smithsonian outpost. The contemporary art museum is entirely cylindrical, unlike the boxy FBI Building, but it has faced its own harsh reviews. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable of The New York Times wrote that “it is known around Washington as the bunker or gas tank, lacking only gun emplacements or an Exxon sign. Its blind mass is broken by a Mussolinistyle balcony on the Mall side. But jokes are too easy a dismissal of the undismissable. There are serious reasons why the museum and sculpture court fail as architecture.”

JACKSON GRAHAM BUILDING

The Jackson Graham Building. (Photo by nevermindtheend)

Metro stations aren’t the only part of the WMATA that embody the Brutalist aesthetic (some have argued that the white paint job at Union Station betrayed this design). The transit agency has long sought to sell its downtown headquarters, located right by the Capital One Arena, and Metro Board of Directors approved a proposal to do just that earlier this month. The proposal cites the building’s need for extensive infrastructure repairs that could cost between $75 and $90 million, and the potential to gain anywhere from $56 and $132 million from selling it. This course of events stands in direct contrast to the current plans for the FBI Building which, according to Axios, Trump is hoping to treat like a “Trump Organization construction project.”