The **United States Commission of Fine Arts (CFA)** is an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1910 to advise on the design, aesthetics, and artistic development of Washington, D.C., safeguarding its role as the nation's symbolic capital.[2][3] Composed of seven unpaid presidential appointees—experts in architecture, landscape design, and the arts, serving four-year terms—the CFA reviews (but does not approve) projects like federal buildings, monuments, memorials, parks, and public spaces across the District, including the National Mall, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Pentagon.[1][5] Inspired by the City Beautiful movement and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the CFA emerged from the 1901 McMillan Commission's visionary plan to transform D.C.'s patchwork landscape into a neoclassical masterpiece of white marble temples and ordered parks.[3][6] Early leaders like chairman Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., and Charles Moore guided its expansion: President Taft's 1910 executive order added public buildings, while later laws (Shipstead-Luce Act of 1930, Old Georgetown Act of 1950) extended oversight to private structures near federal lands and Georgetown's historic district.[2][3] The CFA also shaped coins, medals, and overseas military cemeteries.[3] **Key achievements** span a century of influence, evolving from Beaux-Arts grandeur to modernist pragmatism, urban renewal, and contemporary priorities like security, sustainability, and technology integration in design.[4][6] It upheld "beauty of form, excellence of proportions, and permanence of materials," steering D.C.'s iconic skyline and serving as a national laboratory for urban planning.[6] Publications like *Civic Art: A Centennial History* chronicle this legacy.[4] Currently operational with a 12-person civil service staff and the advisory Ol