According to a scale model that was photographed on President Trump’s desk in the Oval Office today during a meeting with the Finnish Prime Minister, there appears to be plans for a new monument in the D.C. area!
While the current administration is no stranger to taking on bold architectural investments, such as the paving over of the Rose Garden’s courtyard or the plans to construct a formal ballroom attached to the White House for hosting events, this would be the biggest monument/memorial built in years!
What new monument may come to the D.C. area?
Although few details of the proposed monument have been made public, a photograph of a scale model, visible on the President’s desk in the Oval Office, provides a clear view of the planned location and size of the monument.
The monument, according to the model, is a massive marble arch, reminiscent of the Paris Arc de Triomphe, which would line up with the Lincoln Memorial across the Potomac River, in proximity to Arlington National Cemetery, centered in a roundabout on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
A closer look at the model revealed a few more details of the arch, like a winged golden angel holding a torch with two white marble eagles on either side on the top of the arch.
How much would the new cost?
It’s not certain what this monument would cost to make, but it would certainly be fair to assume its cost would remain consistent with some of the other recent monuments and memorials built in proximity to the National Mall over the years.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, completed in 2011 – cost approximately $120 million (privately funded)
- The World War II Memorial, completed in 2004 – cost approximately $182 million (mostly privately funded, but some federal taxpayer funds were used to support the construction)
So, while we can make educated guesses as to how much a new monument of this scale could cost, there have yet to be any official statements from the current administration that could help us understand the potential costs.
If the plan is to build an arch truly comparable to the ‘Arc de Triomphe’ in Paris, it could cost as much as $820 million if it were to be constructed using traditional methods, but modern processes could reduce costs to around $250 – $350 million.