President Donald Trump’s handpicked Commission of Fine Arts took a preliminary vote last week to advance the administration’s plans for a gargantuan victory arch in Memorial Circle, between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. Ostensibly an acknowledgement of the nation’s 250t h birthday, the so-called “United States Triumphal Arch” has been something of a pet project for Trump, who has suggested that the structure would “top” Paris’ Arc de Triomphe in stature and cultural gravitas. At 250 feet tall, it would dramatically change the character of DC’s skyline—and, like the president’s contested White House ballroom construction and amorphous citywide beautification efforts, promises to distinctly reshape the local environment in his image. At Thursday’s Commission of Fine Arts meeting, letters from nearly a thousand public commenters expressed opposition to the blueprints drafted by architecture firm Harrison Design. These plans imagine a 165-foot-tall arch—which indeed bears an obvious resemblance to the Arc de Triomphe—atop a 25-foot pedestal, crowned with a 60-foot Lady Liberty sculpture. Dissenters included local preservationists, who criticized the scale of the design, arguing that it would impede sight lines and disrupt the visual harmony of existing monuments. Pushback on the arch has made its way to court, too: A group of Vietnam War veterans are suing the administration in an effort to halt construction out of fear that the structure “will overshadow the values and spirit of those who valiantly served our country and lie in Arlington National Cemetery.” We asked Ryan Moody—a landscape architect and founding principal of Moody Graham, who helped design DC’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial—to help us parse this mounting criticism of the planned arch. Here’s what he thinks of the proposal. It wouldn’t do what an arch is supposed to do. Trump’s proposal “would benefit from reconsidering what an arch, or gateway, actually does,” Moody says. Unlike structures like the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument, which people can physically approach, the success of an arch generally depends on its ability to bestow passersby with a discernible sense of place. “Are we passing through this and feeling different, or that we’ve been welcomed into a new place or a new thought pattern?” he wonders. ” If most visitors encounter it from a car, surrounded by security bollards, it risks becoming an object to pass rather than a place to inhabit.” Moody does see value in the proposed public observation deck, which would offer panoramic views of the city. However, according to blueprints, visitors would have to access this vantage point by walking through a 250-foot tunnel—an effort to keep pedestrians from having to contend with adjacent traffic in the roundabout. “The experience of getting there matters as much as the destination,” he says. “This notion that you go underground and pop up, I think, is disorienting.” Successful security features feel consistent with the design of the project itself. As a model for this, Moody references the Washington Monument’s perimeter security, which was designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin in the early 2000s. “When you experience that monument, you don’t feel like you’re walking past security bollards,” he explains. “You feel like you’re meandering amongst granite walls that feel appropriate to the city, that are reflective of the granite walls of the Capitol building.” It wouldn’t make sense as an American monument. “In many cultures, gateways are not simply objects but transitions,” Moody says. He cites Japanese Torii gates, which are customarily placed at entrances to Shinto shrines as a marker of the divide between the human world and the sacred spiritual realm, as an example. Often painted a vermillion red based on a cultural belief that the color can ward off evil spirits, each element of the design is steeped in tradition. Moody saw these structures himself during a trip to Japan: “It really felt like a landscape experience. It felt spiritual, it felt powerful, it felt unique to the place and to the culture,” he recalls. “Unfortunately, the representation of the arch is currently designed, I don’t feel any of that.” Torii gates mark the entrance to Fushimi Inari Taisha, a major Shinto shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Photograph by Flickr user Angel de los Rios. In fact, key members of the Commission of Fine Arts appear similarly confused about how certain elements of the proposed arch reflect American design conventions. James C. McCrery II, the panel’s vice chairman and the former head of the White House ballroom reconstruction project, suggested that the monument would appear “more Washingtonian” if the myriad bronze statues proposed for the top of the structure were removed. He also asked architects to consider replacements for a pair of gold lions set to flank both sides of the arch, pointing out that the animals are “not of this continent” and therefore don’t resonate as emblems of American heritage. Since the impetus for the arch is the semiquincentennial, Moody wonders why its designers seem to be conjuring “a scaled-up facsimile of the Arc de Triomphe” as opposed to preceding American architectural feats. “Maybe I understand the idea of reaching 250 feet tall to commemorate the 250th anniversary, but that feels very superficial,” he says. “It feels like there’s some additional critical thought that could certainly come about in regards to the scale of the monument, in regards to what kind of experience it’s framing.” Moody thinks the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, built as a testament to American westward expansion, would serve as a more apt reference for Trump’s project. “It was forward-looking in form, ambitious in scale, and grounded in a rigorous design process led by Eero Saarinen,” he says. “Though initially contested, it has since become beloved, in large part because of how it integrates monumentality with landscape,” particularly after 2018 when it was redesigned to improve visitor accessibility. It isn’t compatible with existing monuments. Moody is not opposed to the idea of an arch in Memorial Circle. “I think it’s an appropriate gateway, I think it certainly needs something,” he says. “It feels like a moment where something that’s architectural feels appropriate.” That said, the disapproval voiced by veterans, preservationists, and DC locals indicates that the towering design would not suit the environment in a way that honors existing landmarks, particularly Arlington National Cemetery. “What’s the emotion that we want to be setting, coming into such a solemn landscape and such an important American landscape?” he asks. “Does this experience enhance that, or does it contrast it? Does it set the wrong tone?” The size of the arch would make it difficult to square with other monuments in the area, according to Moody. It would dwarf the nearby Jefferson Memorial and practically rival the height of the Capitol building. “The renderings don’t quite give you the full picture of how big this proposed arch is,” he says. “So I do think there’s issues with the scale. I think it could achieve its goals without the bulk or the height.” The design process hasn’t been transparent. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. Photograph by Flickr user Matt Kowalczyk. Another admirable aspect of the Gateway Arch, Moody says, is its origin story: The final design was the winner of a 1947 competition, which elicited more than 170 entries from around the country. Since the new arch is supposed to be commemorative of America’s 250th birthday, Moody thinks a contest like this “would better align with American values of pluralism, innovation, and public discourse.” Instead, the Trump administration’s proposal reads more “like it’s coming from one or two individuals who are focused on the idea of a neoclassical arch in the city.” Further exacerbating the sense that the arch is not exactly planned to be a monument for the people, Moody says, is the relative ease with which the design has breezed through the approval process. “If you have a thousand letters and you’re not listening to those people, what does that say about the Commission of Fine Arts, and what does that say about its value?” he asks, noting that he and his colleagues have had more trouble getting permission to build single-family homes. Both the arch and the White House ballroom project have been ushered through “both schematic concept and final design approval, while us as practitioners are struggling to get a building permit or approval for a much smaller project of significantly less overall cultural importance.” As an architect, Moody himself has interfaced with the Commission of Fine Arts, which he says has a reputation of being tough but fair. “Everyone going into CFA meetings knows these are going to be the best and brightest design minds, and there’s going to be a good conversation about what’s being proposed and potentially how it could be better,” he explains. He recalls his own experiences with the panel being largely positive—though some of the criticism can be frustrating, he concedes that the commission’s pushback has always ultimately made his designs better. The same scrutiny doesn’t seem to applied to the administration’s proposals. “I think, unfortunately, there’s been an erosion of trust,” Moody says, and that’s no way to celebrate a birthday.The post A Landscape Architect Reviews Trump’s Proposed Triumphal Arch first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less