The Architectural Follies of Trump’s Washington, DC

I’ve long been fascinated by the monuments of totalitarianism, the building projects undertaken by men who think of themselves as the lords and masters of the countries they govern. One of my favorite examples is the Pyramid of Tirana, a particularly dismal hunk of brutalism erected in honor of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s ruler for almost 40 years. It opened in the 1980s, and its purpose was to house a museum all about… Enver Hoxha.

The fact that the United States has never been one of those countries—our presidents most emphatically do not own the house in which they reside or build monuments to themselves (with the exception of presidential libraries)—has escaped the attention of the current holder of the office, who is doing his best to remake our nation’s capital in his own garish image.

And so, during the first week of June, I rode the Acela to Washington, DC, purchased a Metro day pass, and set out to investigate the progress of Trump’s grands projets. My first destination, of course, was the Kennedy Center. After a short walk from the nearest Metro station, I found myself among a handful of tourists, all fixated on the sign on the front of the center. We were there, it appeared, for the spectacle of a current president’s name being slapped on an institution built as a memorial to a past president whose violent death was a national trauma, one still very much in living memory.

Aside from the presence of the curiosity seekers, the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts was largely dormant. The two massive corridors that run the width of the complex, the Hall of States and the Hall of Nations, were unlocked but occupied only by a handful of staffers. The Reach, a series of small, asymmetrical pavilions designed by the architect Steven Holl and opened in 2019, was a ghost town held in suspension, like the rest of the complex, by Trump’s intention to shut it all down for a two-year renovation (a plan that was blocked by a judge this past spring).

From there, I meandered over to the National Mall, where I noticed a group of workmen scrubbing the base of a statue of the mythical winged horse Pegasus accompanied by two nude male figures. An homage to the “peaceful arts,” the statue is one of four that Trump is having newly gilded with 23.75-karat gold, at a cost of $5.1 million. While the spectacle of Trump playing King Midas on our dime has become routine, I was troubled by the signs mounted on the sheds enclosing the other statue, whose Pegasus and nude figures were being patched and cleaned ahead of its regilding . “We are making DC SAFE & BEAUTIFUL,” they read, alongside the logos of the US Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and Freedom 250.

Predictably, the work being done in the name of safety and beauty has been, thus far, making the capital’s familiar landscapes arguably less safe and conspicuously less beautiful. Case in point: the Reflecting Pool.

On the morning of my visit, the Reflecting Pool was empty, except for what appeared to be layers of tarp and some leftover pieces of equipment. The walkways surrounding the pool were covered with plastic sheeting, and the view of the pool from ground level was blocked by a fence covered with a black fabric. Nonetheless, large groups of schoolkids were posing for portraits with this distinctly unbeautiful thing as a backdrop.

Like all of Trump’s schemes, the idea of painting the basin swimming-pool blue (or American-flag blue) is maddeningly wrongheaded. As a lawsuit filed by the DC–based Cultural Landscape Foundation explains, “The Reflecting Pool’s profound reflective quality—achieved through deliberate design choices, including the dark color of its basin—creates the sweeping mirror image of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument that millions of visitors experience every year. The dark grey, achromatic basin was not incidental to the design. It was the design.”

Trump’s perverse assault on DC’s landmarks seems to have energized the Cultural Landscape Foundation. What had once been a quiet advocate for America’s outdoor places has morphed into a crusader mounting legal defenses of Washington’s monuments and public places. As it happens, the foundation’s president and CEO, Charles A. Birnbaum, wrote the rules for the stewardship of public lands. “I spent 15 years with the National Park Service,” he told me. “I authored the guidelines for the treatment of cultural landscapes.” Birnbaum knows the ins and outs of the approval process for changes affecting Washington’s public parks and monuments. He is unashamedly pro-bureaucracy and frequently refers to something called Section 106, the part of the National Historic Preservation Act that, as cited in the foundation’s law- suit, “requires agencies to engage in a process of consultation before making changes to historic properties.”

Unfortunately, when the current occupant of the White House sees a historic property, he doesn’t think culture or consultation processes; he thinks real estate. While many of us regard the National Mall as a collection of symbols arranged in a view corridor designed to underscore their significance, he sees empty land ripe for development. The fact that this land does not belong to him has apparently never occurred to him.

In a way, the trashing of the Reflecting Pool (and other sites on or adjacent to the National Mall) is the least of the problem; what’s worse is the other bizarre infrastructural changes taking place in the city. Our Capitol, once an open and accessible place, has been turned into a maze of fences and barricades overseen by clusters of very bored-looking National Guard troops and, in some strategic locations, Secret Service agents. It looks and feels like an occupied city. The streets immediately surrounding the White House, including Pennsylvania Avenue, were barricaded, and nowhere along my route could I catch even a glimpse of the White House.

Just north of Pennsylvania Avenue, I decided to stop at a park that’s long been a customary site for White House gazing (and protesting, too). But it had been entirely fenced off for a renovation project. Supposedly, this involves the addition of 47 maple trees to the park to commemorate the reign of the 47th president, although no one knows for sure because, as Birnbaum told me, no plans were filed or approved.

On H Street, along the northern edge of Lafayette Park, was the saddest scene I witnessed: Tourists were doing their best to get snapshots of the White House through the tight diamond mesh of the fence. Along the same stretch of fence was a sign: “These improvements are being completed using your fee dollars.” (As Michael Scherer has reported in The Atlantic, much of the expense of making DC “safe and beautiful” has been paid for with money siphoned from the budgets of National Parks elsewhere in the country.)

From there, I rode the Metro to Arlington National Cemetery, where I inspected the grassy traffic circle where Trump plans to erect a 250-foot-tall monument to himself. (By September he was claiming it would double as a “military complex,” complete with drones and snipers.) Of course, there are still some rules in place, such as Washington’s 1910 Height of Buildings Act, which doesn’t permit the construction of buildings over 130 feet. But, predictably, the Trump-appointed head of the National Capital Planning Commission, Will Scharf, insists that the rule doesn’t apply to things built by the federal government—including a mammoth neoclassical tchotchke.

Ultimately, my expedition took me back to the Potomac waterfront, where I walked the length of West Potomac Park. It’s a slice of open land, not far from the Korean War Veterans’ Memorial, that’s full of ball fields and bicyclists. It’s been named by Trump as the future site of an open-air Madame Tussaud’s that he calls the National Garden of American Heroes. East Potomac Park offers no respite either: The debris from the demolition of the East Wing of the White House has reportedly been dumped there, and in the future, after this refuse has been removed, Trump wants to turn its golf course (naturally) into “a world-class public asset.”

Almost all of the changes that Trump has proposed can be read as appropriations of public space, and yet I’ve seen no evidence of any meaningful public planning process. Of course, the public can always participate by contributing money: There’s even a pledge agreement soliciting donations for the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation. (It directs inquiries to Abby Mathis, deputy director of Make America Great Again Inc., and Meredith O’Rourke, who “developed, managed and led President Trump’s national fundraising team during the 2024 election,” according to her profile on the National Park Foundation’s website.)

Overheated, exhausted, and profoundly depressed, Itrudged to the JeffersonMemorial, which sits on its own patch of water-front between the East and West Potomac parks. When I arrived, the monument’s steps and rotunda were jammed with high-school kids, apparently a convergence of multiple field trips. Initially, I was annoyed by all the noise and hubbub, but once I found a seat on one of the benches that line the Rotunda, I began to enjoy watching the boisterous, multiethnic horde of teenagers. Some were organizing a celebratory line dance, and on the bench next to me, a youthful teacher was speaking with a few of his students, one of whom was a young women wearing a hijab. He was trying his best to explain Jefferson’s many contradictions and noted that while our third president was a deist, he was notably curious about Islam—he even owned a copy of the Quran—and was an advocate of religious tolerance.

The lovely scene playing out around me made me forget, for a moment, Trump’s version of “safe and beautiful” and reminded me of what this country, at its best, can be. All over DC, there are words carved into stone that can be read as history denouncing our dictator manqué. Indeed, as I sat at the Jefferson Memorial, gathering strength for my trek back to Union Station, I spent a few minutes appreciating the quote that encircles the memorial’s rotunda, an excerpt from Jefferson’s argument—written 226 years ago—in favor of religious freedom: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Amen.