Local preservationists are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s plan to construct a massive triumphal arch and asking him instead to consider building slender columns to protect the capital’s visual harmony.
Trump officials have repeatedly cited a 1925 Congress-approved plan to erect the pillars as justification for his proposed 250-foot arch at Memorial Circle, outside of Arlington National Cemetery. In a letter on Wednesday, Andrew Lewis, an official in D.C.’s Historic Preservation Office, called Trump’s plan “antithetical” to the 1925 design proposal and said the arch would limit the historic view corridor.
If a monument project must proceed, Lewis said, it should be the two columns proposed a century ago, rather than Trump’s massive arch, to maintain visual unity.
“The proposed Triumphal Arch would effectively replace much of the important view with a frame — a massive frame that would significantly narrow and restrict, if not completely obstruct portions of the view corridor,” said the letter, first reported by The Washington Post on Friday.
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The administration has consulted D.C. and Virginia’s preservation offices as part of a required federal review.
Officials with the National Park Service previously said construction of the arch would negatively impact dozens of historic sites in the area, including the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall. Earlier this week, the agency sent a letter to the local historic preservation offices saying that despite the arch’s projected visual consequences, construction should proceed as planned.
In his letter, Lewis said the Park Service lacks a complete understanding of how the arch will affect nearby areas and disputed the Park Service’s assertion that the arch’s significance is “location dependent.”
“The language used to describe the nature of the adverse effects significantly underestimates the degree to which the integrity of the affected historic properties would be diminished,” the letter said. “For example, the arch would not merely be ‘prominently visible.’ Instead, it would visually overwhelm the surrounding historic context.”
The two-column monument approved in 1925 would have accentuated the existing views and monuments at the time, including the Lincoln Memorial. Approved decades after Reconstruction, they also aimed to represent the country’s reunification, with one pillar representing the North and the other the South — an intention Lewis said Trump’s proposed arch does not meet.
Officials with a nonprofit historic preservation group sent their own letter to the Park Service on Wednesday: Judy Chesser and Paul Edmondson, officials with Committee of 100 on the Federal City, said the agency is failing to meet its legal obligations to consider alternative structures and locations for the project.
An Interior Department spokesperson said it has followed all laws and has received robust public feedback, with over 100,000 responses.
“To infer this process is unlawful shows a lack of understanding of the facts,” the spokesperson said in a statement to The Washington Sun.
Lewis said despite mounting negative feedback, the Park Service doesn’t seem to be adequately acknowledging “fervent opposition” expressed by the majority of the public. A recent Historic Preservation Office review showed opposition to the arch has been expressed by residents of all 50 states and most U.S. territories, according to Lewis’ letter. Locally, 93% of the 11,000 comments from D.C. residents strongly oppose the arch.
A federal commission stacked with Trump allies has already approved the arch plan. A second commission still has to give final approval, though the construction process itself has already prompted an escalating legal battle.
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