From minting coins featuring his own face to covering buildings with gold, the president’s proposals for marking America’s semiquincentennial say a lot about the country’s backwards outlook
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hen the United States celebrated its bicentennial on 4 July 1976, it marked the occasion with the opening of the National Air and Space Museum’s exhibition hall on Washington DC’s National Mall. Designed in a boldly modernist style by the blue-chip firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (now HOK), it stood as a testament to American aeronautical derring-do, from the Wright brothers to the moon landings.
At the time, even though the stench of Republican political shenanigans was never far off, with Gerald Ford replacing the disgraced Richard Nixon in 1974, there was a sense of a nation embracing progress, looking forward, not back. For all the historical re-enactments of Washington crossing the Delaware, the US chose to see itself through the prism of modernity and technological puissance.
Half a century on, as the country prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its founding, historical re-enactments have edged out just about everything when it comes to architecture. Intent on stamping his crassly gilded imprimatur on Washington, Donald Trump recently shared the latest iterations of his proposed triumphal arch, first unveiled last October, to be erected just across from the Lincoln Memorial on the Potomac River. His post on Truth Social shows three uncredited versions of the so-called “Arc de Trump” now rebadged as the Independence Arch, embellished with varying degrees of gilding and statuary.
