DC Triumphal Arch — What You Need to Know Before June 15 (Episode 72)

Episode Guest

Priya Jain – Chair, Heritage Conservation Committee

Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) 

This week I sat down with Priya Jain — Chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee for the Society of Architectural Historians and Associate Professor at Texas A&M University — for an urgent conversation about the proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch in Washington DC.

The arch would be placed in Memorial Circle, directly in the center of one of the most historically significant views in the country — the axis connecting the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery that was deliberately designed as a monument to reconciliation between the North and the South. A cultural landscape report as recent as 2024 said clearly that no permanent monument should be placed within Memorial Circle. This proposal flies in the face of that guidance.

Priya explains what’s actually at stake — not just for this one arch, but for the broader process of how decisions get made about our public lands and national heritage. The East Wing of the White House. The Kennedy Center. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern. And the pattern is: move fast, skip the required reviews, and ask for forgiveness later — if the damage is even reversible.

The public has until Sunday June 15 to submit comments. Typically a project of this scale gets 30 to 45 days for public comment. We were given 10. The comment link is below and in our bio on every platform. It takes three minutes. Please do it.

Things to know

Show Notes & Links

• Submit your public comment — parkplanning.nps.gov· Deadline Sunday June 15, end of day Mountain Time
• Society of Architectural Historians· Priya’s organization and their formal statement on the arch
• SAH formal letter on the Triumphal Arch proposal

Transcript

DC Triumphal Arch — Full Transcript

The Parks Podcast, Special Episode | Priya Jain, Society of Architectural Historians

Introduction

Missy Rentz: I am so excited to welcome Priya Jain to The Parks Podcast. Priya is the Chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee for the Society of Architectural Historians. Priya, welcome to The Parks Podcast.

Priya Jain: Thank you, Missy, for having me.

Missy: Priya, you are so kind to quickly jump on because we have an urgent issue taking place this week around our parks — and that’s the Triumphal Arch. For people who haven’t heard about this, can you say exactly what is being proposed and where this arch will go?

What Is Being Proposed and Where

Priya: Absolutely. This arch is being proposed in Washington, DC. The land is owned and administered by the National Park System — it’s part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, within the Memorial Avenue Bridge corridor. The arch is being proposed on the Arlington side, but it’s still within Washington, DC.

Priya: This entire area stems from the planning for Washington, DC from the turn of the century. The vision goes back to the city’s founding in the early 1800s — from the design of the French architect and planner who laid out this very axial plan for the city with strategic viewpoints and important monuments. In 1901, some of the most important architects and landscape architects of their time — Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park; Daniel Burnham, the famous Chicago architect; McKim, Mead, and White — got together to create the National Mall as we know it. Site the Lincoln Memorial. Build the bridge that connects it to Arlington House on the other side of the Potomac River. The history of this area is super rich, and it is all very strategic in design.

Missy: Just so people understand — Arlington House is in Arlington National Cemetery. When you’re standing there, you have a straight view across the Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. I actually got chills talking about it. It’s a sacred, very special place that they’re proposing this.

Priya: Absolutely. This new arch is being proposed right in the center of that long vista — and this vista had reciprocal views. If you were at the Lincoln Memorial, you could look across the bridge to Arlington House. If you were at Arlington House, you had a clear view back to the Lincoln Memorial. And this was not happenstance. This was designed. This was meant to be a reconciliation between the North and the South — to link the Lincoln Memorial, representing the North, and Arlington House, once the home of Robert E. Lee. It was a strategic way to say our country has moved past that. The bridge itself was designed as a monument to the past but also the future.

The Role of Architectural Historians

Missy: And you’re a scholar. You study this.

Priya: Absolutely. We’re architectural historians — we don’t just write about architecture, we dig into historical documents and archival documents to figure out what people were thinking at the time. There are historians who’ve written extensively about the history of Washington DC and this moment in time, and they’ve documented how the development of this entire area came about.

Priya: What’s also important to know is that it’s not just academic. In this entire past century, the National Park Service itself has recognized the importance of this area. In all of their planning documents — thinking about highways, roads, changes, safety — they have repeatedly reinforced the importance of maintaining this axial viewpoint between the monuments. Our important historic places require a lot of work to look the way they do. That work involves preserving, studying, and making sure whatever new things we’re putting in won’t harm these character-defining features. Because if you don’t have this, someone could knock down the White House or the US Capitol. There’s nothing stopping any of that unless and until we respect these historic preservation guidelines and procedures.

Missy: There have been additions to the Mall — they’ve just gone through a proper process where they had the opportunity for review and were integrated in a way that maintains the character and historical significance of the space.

Priya: Absolutely. I do not think preservation is about stopping new development or change. Throughout this past century, so much has been built on the Mall. The entire Arlington Memorial Bridge was recently rebuilt and refurbished after a century of use. But there are very clear guidelines the federal government has laid out for doing these types of projects.

Priya: What the Society of Architectural Historians has urged the government to do is look at alternate monument designs. In the 1920s, as part of the McMillan Plan, a monument was proposed for this general area — not in the center of Memorial Circle, but to the side of the bridge. Two slender columns, one symbolizing the North and one the South, each 166 feet tall. The reporting from the 1920s constantly mentioned how this design came about specifically to frame the views to the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House — not to interfere with them. We’re really urging the government to look back at this rich history of precedent and find something appropriate for this location.

The Top Concerns

Missy: What are the top concerns about this proposal specifically?

Priya: It is the fact that it does not respect the history of the site or the guidelines laid out by the government. As recently as 2024, a cultural landscape report for the Memorial Avenue corridor — a very common type of planning document that guides future development of all our national park systems — said clearly that no permanent monument should be placed within Memorial Circle.

Priya: This proposal flies in the face of all preservation and historical guidance for this area. The government should really think about what is even the need for this monument. It does not fulfill any public safety requirement. It comes out of an executive order about beautification of Washington DC — but in doing so, it is harming existing, very significant historical monuments and the views between them. The viewsheds are an important part of how we experience and appreciate our national parks. We are asking the government to rethink if this project is even necessary — and if they think a monument in this location is warranted, to look for alternate options that mitigate the harmful impacts of the current proposal.

Cost, Aviation Safety, and the Height of Buildings Act

Missy: You wrote a beautiful letter on the Society of Architectural Historians website — I’ll link to it in all the episode notes. You focus on the architectural side, but there are two other areas I’ve read about: cost, and aviation safety. Reagan National Airport is right there — this could impede air traffic.

Priya: Absolutely. Apart from the historical and aesthetic concerns, there are serious logistical problems with this plan that show it hasn’t been seriously thought through. The amount of time and deliberation that would typically go into a project of this scale simply has not happened here.

Priya: Washington DC has its own law — the Height of Buildings Act — that restricts building heights to maintain the horizontal character of the city. This has been applied to every project the National Capital Planning Commission has reviewed. In the case of this project, the NCPC chair — a presidential appointee — has given an opinion that the Height of Buildings Act simply does not apply here. That is very unprecedented and atypical. We’re really just asking the government to follow its own rules — rules that have been followed on all other projects across the nation’s capital.

Missy: NCPC is the National Capital Planning Commission. And in your letter, the examples they’re using as precedent aren’t fair comparisons — things that were proposed elsewhere, and some were actually declined because of these same rules.

The Public Comment Process and Why It Matters

Priya: Absolutely. We have a process in place — Section 106, from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 — that allows the public to give input and allows consulting parties, cultural organizations, and state historic preservation officers to weigh in. In this case, the government only provided the public 10 days to comment on a project with very significant adverse impacts. There is a huge amount of information people have to consume to understand the impact. Typically a project like this would have 30 to 45 days at minimum.

Priya: The consulting parties — including the National Trust for Historic Preservation — have applied to be part of the Section 106 process and have still not been granted that status. The public has until Sunday June 15, end of day Mountain Time, to submit their comments. These are our public parks — our places to enjoy and to pass on to future generations. We can only do that if we are mindful and strategic about how we develop them. We encourage people to take this opportunity, however short, to make their voices heard.

Missy: A few days ago I did a step-by-step post on how to comment because the form is buried — there are a lot of reasons people abandon before they submit. Check that post, I’ll repost it over the weekend, and I’ll put the direct link everywhere I can. Let me ask one more thing — is this a one-off, or should we be concerned about a broader pattern?

A Broader Pattern of Bypassing Review

Priya: Unfortunately, this past year we have seen a lot of projects floated quickly without the required time for historic preservation reviews. I would begin with the East Wing of the White House, which was taken down without any notice — the review is now being pushed through retroactively, but the East Wing is already gone. The Kennedy Center redevelopment was discussed, though it seems to have been walked back. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building — a national historic landmark — has a plan to paint it white that requires a Section 106 process. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been in the news as well.

Priya: Regardless of whether any individual project is ultimately a good idea — that is beside the point. The fact that required laws and regulations for the required reviews have not happened — that is the broader concern. We don’t want to do something and ask for forgiveness later, because this is irreparable harm that can be caused to our nation’s heritage. We want to take the required time to do things right, and we should expect that of our federal government, because they are the stewards of our national parks and our national heritage.

Closing

Missy: The public comment deadline is June 15th. Please go to parkplanning.nps.gov — I’ll put links everywhere to make it as easy as possible. Priya, I am so grateful to you for jumping on for this last-minute episode. I’d like to invite you to come back any time we need to get the word out about something that can help protect our public lands.

Priya: Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity.

Missy: That’s all for this episode. Please go submit a comment — and until next time, we’ll see you in the parks.

Music for The Parks Podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. Follow us @TheParksPodcast or visit TheParksPodcast.com. Follow the journey. 🌲