While the US marks defeating a king, Trump makes Washington his own

Link copiedShareShare articleWashington DC is a city designed to be experienced in a certain way. The position of the sandstone White House, the cast-iron-domed Capitol building and the towering Washington Memorial were set out by an architect who wrote to George Washington, explaining he was designing a very grand city. Now, the capital is steeped in symbolism and meaning. The Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River is a connection between symbols of America's North and South and the union that survived the Civil War. The Lincoln Memorial looks across its Reflecting Pools to the Washington Memorial. Washington, as the father of the government. Lincoln, keeping watch as its preserver. The National Mall connects them all, and beyond that, the views of these monuments carry meaning too. Changing them, or proposing other buildings on federal land, typically requires consultation with the public and cultural experts, a review process, and in some cases, Congressional approval. But during his second term in office, Trump is changing the landscape and altering how it can be experienced. Near the memorials to Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, and the fallen American soldiers buried in Arlington Cemetery, Trump plans to build a towering triumphal arch, something historically associated with imperial victory. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pools have changed colour, washed in "American flag blue". The White House looks set to get a new ballroom at the expense of the East Wing. The walls of the Oval Office have become a scrapbook canvas, with gold ornaments and portraits in ornate frames jockeying for space. A public golf course along the Potomac River is being converted into a championship course. While a local park could become a "National Garden of American Heroes" and see statues erected. The John F. Kennedy Center was renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center. Lafayette Park was also closed for an upgrade, and what was the nearby Black Lives Matter Plaza was dismantled earlier this term. Project by project, Donald Trump is altering the US capital, disrupting views and design that, in some cases, date back more than two centuries. There are legal challenges, but for many projects, work is well underway. The No Kings protests will return to American streets this weekend — aimed at the president and, once again, held to coincide with his birthday. And while the United States will mark 250 years of independence from King George III next month, Washington DC is being remade in one man's image. After the US Constitution was signed and came into effect in 1789, the new federation needed a capital. In the American Revolution, George Washington fought the British beside French engineer-architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and after their victory, the men set about building a city befitting the new nation. Ever the surveyor, Washington chose the spot at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers for the site of the new capital. "L'Enfant found a high spot, which he called a pedestal awaiting a monument," said Judy Feldman, historian and chair of the National Mall Coalition, one of the organisations legally challenging Donald Trump's ballroom. "The highest spot goes to the seat of representational government" and that became the site of the Capitol building, she said. "Another rise a mile away goes to the seat of the president, the White House." And the axis where they meet is where the Washington Monument stands. Between the three monuments was the land that became the National Mall — open space dedicated to the pursuit of public rest and enjoyment. Dr Feldman said the mall was "a physical embodiment in landscape and open space and architecture of the US Constitution". By 1922, the Lincoln Memorial had opened, and the western end of the mall had been extended. The changes, at that time, were in keeping with the thinking of L'Enfant. The mall evolved alongside America's evolution. But it's the symbolism baked into the planning that took place at that time that advocates fear is now under threat from Trump's triumphal arch proposal. In ancient Rome, triumphal arches were built to celebrate the expansion of the empire. After conquering another community, the returning general would pass through an arch as he re-entered the city, captive slaves at his sides, stolen gold in his chariot. Donald Trump calls his proposal an "independence arch" but scholars of history warn it has typically been men who morph into dictators who have erected them. When Trump was asked by a CBS reporter who the 76-metre-high triumphal arch in the middle of modern-day Washington DC was for exactly, he said: "Me." "It will be like the one in Paris, but to be honest with you, it blows it away," Trump said. In recent weeks, a design has been approved by the federal Commission of Fine Arts — a body now run by Trump political allies. The design woul

While the US marks defeating a king, Trump makes Washington his own

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While the US marks defeating a king, Trump makes Washington his own

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