Since returning to office, President Trump has not shied away from letting his inner real estate developer let loose! From the beautiful Rose Garden and Oval Office renovations to a new ballroom currently being constructed in the White House, President Trump has been making a lot of changes. But now, it looks like he may be planning his most ambitious project yet… A 3D model of a massive triumphal arc that rivals the Lincoln Memorial in size was sitting on the Oval Office desk during today’s press conference. AFP White House Correspondent Danny Kemp shared this photo: On Trump’s desk in the Oval Office today was a plan for a triumphal arch on the other side of the river from the Lincoln Memorial pic.twitter.com/PyulIhlmHE — Danny Kemp (@dannyctkemp) October 9, 2025 Here’s another angle: If you don’t know, the triumphal arch originated in Rome. True to its name, these monuments were typically constructed to mark a ‘triumph’ or significant achievement/milestone. As President Trump ushers in the American golden age, that would be a really fitting monument. Don’t you think? While no plans have been officially announced for the triumphal arch, it’s possible that the plans could be linked to the upcoming celebrations for America’s 250th birthday next year. From AFP: A mock-up of a triumphal arch sat on Trump’s Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as he met Finnish President Alex Stubb on Thursday, an AFP journalist and photographer saw. The plan, featuring small models on a map, shows the arch sitting on a traffic circle near Arlington Cemetery, on the other side of the Potomac River from the white marble Lincoln Memorial. A second, larger model arch sat on the desk, on which details could be seen more clearly, including a winged golden angel holding aloft a torch, flanked by two white eagles on either side. Both models resembled the famed Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which was commissioned by the French emperor Napoleon in the early 19th century to commemorate fallen soldiers during his military campaigns. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the plan. But the “Donald Trump for President” Facebook page, which has more than six million followers, posted a drawing in September with a virtually identical design in the same spot, linking it to celebrations for the 250th anniversary of US independence next year. About a month ago, an architect shared this proposed design for a triumphal arch in D.C., and it gained a lot of traction on social media: A proposal for a triumphal arch in DC for #America250, in the traffic circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery. America needs a triumphal arch! pic.twitter.com/JjwSZsOE9z — Nicolas Leo Charbonneau (@nic_charbonneau) September 4, 2025 Similarly, in late-December 2024, an op-ed was published in City Journal advocating for President Trump to erect a triumphal arch for America’s 250th birthday. Here’s an excerpt from that very interesting City Journal op-ed: What Trump’s celebratory agenda lacks is a more emphatically monumental, symbolically compact addition to the nation’s public realm: a triumphal arch in Washington, which is—or ought to be—every American’s second hometown. The brilliant 1791 plan for the city, with its array of diagonal avenues superimposed on a street grid, was the creation of the French-born, classically trained architect chosen for the task by George Washington himself, Pierre Charles L’Enfant. The L’Enfant Plan generated many urban nodes calling for the erection of monuments. Yet Washington is the only major Western capital that lacks a triumphal arch. The semiquincentennial celebration provides an excellent opportunity to build one. There isn’t enough time to build a permanent arch for the 250th. But temporary arches have a long history in this country. And there’s also a noteworthy precedent for a temporary arch being rebuilt in permanent form after winning public acclaim: the Washington Arch in Manhattan, which celebrated the centennial of George Washington’s first inauguration. The triumphal arch originally appeared in Rome in the second century B.C., well before the fall of the Republic. The Romans were adept eclectics. They modified the monumental gateways of their Etruscan neighbors as free-standing structures and articulated them with the classical architectural forms—columns, friezes, cornices—developed by the Greeks. The resulting Roman arch was an impressive structure that often functioned as a pedestal for sculpture. Many arches of the imperial period were thus crowned by bronze statuary groups showing the emperor driving a four-horse chariot, or quadriga. The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch in Brooklyn honoring the men who served in the Union’s armed forces in the Civil War is crowned by an allegorical Columbia driving such a chariot. But the Arc de Triomphe in Paris—one of the greatest modern monuments—is decorated with sculpture in relief only; there is no crowning statuary group. Nor does it include any columns. The same goes for the Washington Arch, designed by the brilliant Stanford White and completed, in permanent form, in 1895—though two north-facing sculptural groups featuring Washington as commander and president were added later. It’s worth noting that, contrary to widespread belief, there is no record of a Roman arch being built for its honoree’s triumphal procession. Though commissioned by victorious generals, the earliest arches were in fact unconnected with such occasions. To be sure, numerous victory arches were erected along the processional via triumphalis that led up to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline in Rome. But hundreds of arches were also erected in many other venues—in Rome, elsewhere in Italy, and elsewhere around the Empire—and for different reasons. They could celebrate the construction of new roads, bridges, ports, aqueducts, or city walls—sometimes being atavistically embedded in the latter, sometimes standing slightly in front of them. They marked entrances to forums (civic centers), sacred precincts, and important public venues such as the Circus Maximus in Rome. In their four-fronted configuration, they marked important urban intersections. And they could be built in honor of provincial dignitaries as well as the emperor. The monumental arch had religious roots. The city gate from which it derived marked a transition between unconsecrated countryside and the urbs whose boundary had been set according to ritual. But while arches have celebrated achievements and events, only in modern times have they marked chronological milestones, such as a monarch’s jubilee year or a major anniversary of a historic event. What do you think? Would you like to see a triumphal arch constructed in D.C.?