Washington D.C., has long carried the responsibility of representing not merely the United States but the experiment of representative democracy itself. The domes and marble columns rise from a carefully plotted history, echoing Athens and Rome, birthplaces of history and democracy. However, one commentator believes President Donald Trump seeks gold and embellishments that represent a more wedding-cake classicism than a celebration of America's global leadership.
Writing for theNew York Times, architecture critic Paul Goldberger looked beyond Trump's desire to turn the living archive of American history into his own brand of neo‑kitsch. Under the watchful eyes of great leaders immortalized in stone, Trump has literally bulldozed the White House so he can have a ballroom.
Trump's efforts faced a setback as the National Capital Planning Commission was forced to postpone its vote on the ballroom demands until April 2, after being bombarded with more than 35,000 messages from angry Americans who wish to preserve what's left of the American tradition embodied in the White House.
"But it is highly unlikely that the commission, which has been stocked with Trump appointees, will not ultimately sign off on this enormous, banal box in a vaguely classical style that, if it goes forward, will overwhelm the White House and block the view between the White House and the Capitol that has been one of Washington’s signature vistas for more than two centuries," wrote Goldberger.
Trump has already gone through one group of designers and architects after he disagreed with the design. The Guardian reported that one source claimed it was simply that the firm didn't have enough people to manage such a huge project and that Trump parted with the architect on good terms.
The new architect, Goldberger noted, is Rodney Mims Cook Jr.
"Mr. Cook chose not to address the question of whether a building bigger than the presidential residence, with a ballroom that will seat about 1,000 people, the scale of an event space at a hotel catering to conventioneers, is essential for Mr. Trump or any other president to do his job. But Mr. Trump is not — has never been — much interested in doing the job of president as we constitutionally have known it," the critic explained.
What Goldberger couldn't help but recall was how similar Trump is to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was "obsessed with rebuilding Rome into some grand new version of itself."
“It is necessary to liberate from the mediocre disfigurements of the old Rome,” he said. “Rome cannot, must not be, only a modern city in the by now banal sense of the word. It must be a city worthy of its glory.”
Mussolini's "strategy was to impose his vision of imperial grandeur on the old city, ripping apart the urban fabric to insert statues and monuments, grandiose public buildings, wide boulevards and formal axes," wrote Goldberger.
The dictator also wanted "a huge new building as an expression of the power of his Fascist Party that would have gone up diagonally across from the Colosseum, competing with the ancient monument for pride of place," the critic continued. It was ultimately moved to another location and became a 200-yard-high tower, larger than St. Peter's Basilica.
Similarly, Trump seeks to build his own "Arch de Trump," which would greet anyone driving into Washington D.C. on Memorial Bridge, which takes drivers and pedestrians from one side of the Potomac River to the other. As one crosses the bridge, the monument of Abraham Lincoln appears. Behind is the large hill at Arlington National Cemetery, which holds the memory of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for America. Trump wants to put his "Arch" between the two.
The design is the same faux Baroque design, embellished with excess, though it is unclear whether or not it would be gilded. It would be designed to "dazzle, not inspire," said Goldberger. It will "evoke authoritarian strongmen" rather than democratic ideals and the hard-fought desire to keep America together as one nation.
Mussolini, like Trump, never understood his capital city to be one of "magnificent accidents," explained Goldberger.
"He looked at Rome and saw only mess and confusion," the critic continued. "Even St. Peter’s, which with its great piazza by Bernini would seem to have provided the kind of formal monumentality Mussolini craved, was not good enough; the dictator sliced the Via Della Conciliazione through the city to connect the Vatican to the Tiber, demolishing much of the Borgo, the old neighborhood that since medieval times had formed a buffer between the Vatican and the river. Before Mussolini’s makeover, you navigated the dense web of streets until, suddenly, Bernini’s vast columns came into view and the enormous space they enclosed burst upon you like a revelation."
For Mussolini, it was too subtle, Goldberger said.
"To build a city is to accept the notion that it is a place that offers choice, which means that each of us will experience it differently. But as the fascist mentality leaves no room for different views and different forms of politics, it is disdainful of different kinds of urban experience, especially those urban experiences that are personal and even — dare I say it? — idiosyncratic," he closed.
He questioned whether Trump even cares, as he bulldozes his way through Washington, just as he has, disregarding the norms and traditions of American law and democracy. "He has eviscerated the agencies that review public buildings and monuments in Washington, filling them with loyalists who will praise his taste and approve his plans without even waiting for them to be completed."
It has left the nation's capital in the hands of "sycophants who want only to please their leader" rather than professionals guided by a "legitimate system of architectural review."