‘Arc De Trump’: Prez Plans Paris-Style Monument in DC as His Next Big Build
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump is taking his taste for grandeur to a new level and is planning an “Arc de Trump” on the edge of Washington, D.C., inspired by Paris’s Arc de Triomphe.
Three scale models of the proposed arch now sit in the White House, where the president has been personally moving miniature structures across a 3D map of the city.
The idea, according to Axios’ Marc Caputo, came as the president looked at land near the Memorial Bridge, which connects Arlington Cemetery to the capital.
“Let’s build something like the Arc de Triomphe in that space, it would be beautiful when you drive or fly in,” Trump reportedly told a White House visitor weeks ago.
“He’s more of a Corinthian man,” one official told Caputo of Trump’s column design preferences.
Over the weekend Trump posted online, without context, an artist’s rendering of the plan which, according to The Architect’s Newspaper, experts initially compared to Nazi German Minister “Albert Speer’s unbuilt German Arch of Triumph.”
The monument is the latest in a wave of White House redesigns that have consumed the president’s attention, from a $250 million ballroom to a reimagined Rose Garden and marble-floored corridors that mimic Mar-a-Lago’s aesthetic. Trump, aides say, has spent up to 20 hours on design sessions, “engaging in impromptu design meetings between peace deals and shutdown talks.”
“President [George W.] Bush liked to paint,” one aide said. “Trump likes to build and design. This is his artistic outlet.”
Supporters frame the spree as legacy-making.
“He’s stamping his legacy on the presidency and on the White House forever,” one senior adviser told the outlet. “No one can get rid of the ballroom. It will be difficult to take all of the gold away. Who would even do that?”
