Fascism has many faces. Today I am struck by Donald Trump’s architectural preferences, of which we have, among other things, his triumphal arch proposal. News reports have suggested that Trump may do a funding end-run by declaring it a “national security site” and place an ammunition dump underneath it. How pleasingly ironic.
Here’s how fascist architecture works: it is monumental and colossal. It is austerely classical and stripped. (One might include the FBI Building in Washington in this category.) Fascist buildings are imposing and intimidating, symmetrical and rigid. (Think of the Twin Towers in New York this way, or Rockefeller’s rebuilding of the government center in Albany.) Fascist architecture is slab-like, monolithic, and authoritarian.
Check out Trump’s Arch. Do you think it qualifies as a fascist monument? The architectural firm designed the triumphal arch to mimic France’s Arc de Triomphe. Current wags are calling Trump’s proposal “Arc de Trump.”
Stephen Armstrong
Hadley
