Inspiration for Trump's arch was sparked long before the design was first approved

Summary

An image from Harrison Design, the studio involved in the 250-foot-tall arch project, shows what the arch could look like at night, framing Robert E. Lee's house behind it. Harrison Design hide caption In April 2025, design critic Catesby Leigh proposed the idea of building an arch in Washington, D.C., on a conservative think tank's website. The president should build the arch in the nation's capital to commemorate the country's 250th birthday, suggested Leigh, who included two sketches of arches to illustrate the concept. One of those sketches was submitted by a local architect, Nicolas Charbonneau, and the other by an organization led by Rodney Mims Cook, Jr., a developer President Trump had nominated to lead the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency that reviews memorial proposals in Washington. "And let's hope President Trump mandates an Independence Arch that shows them the way," Leigh wrote. In April, Nicolas Charbonneau, an architect for Harrison Design studio, posted his sketch that appeared in Leigh's article to Instagram. hide caption Months after Leigh suggested the arch, specifying it could be built on Memorial Circle, the traffic circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, Trump showed off designs for an arch in the same place, made by the architecture firm Charbonneau works for. Cook, who had contributed the other sketch in Leigh's piece, later voted to approve the arch project in his capacity as head of the Commission of Fine Arts, despite the fact that the arch hadn't been reviewed earlier by other stakeholders or Congress, as federal laws require. "We don't need anything from Congress." A small group of classical design proponents close to Trump, many without formal architecture training, have played an oversized role in the arch's quick approvals, NPR has found. "To be consistent with other Western capitals that have arches, I would just urge my fellow commissioners to move forward with the concept approval of this project," said Harris, after seeing Charbonneau's presentation of what the arch could look like.