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President Donald Trump has been roundly criticized for his announcement that the former Kennedy Center, Washington’s premier performing arts venue, will be closed for two years for renovation. He should be criticized, but not for the reasons his foes offer.
The problem with Trump’s plan isn’t that it goes too far: It’s that it doesn’t go far enough. The president shouldn’t simply renovate a tired and uninspired building. He should completely tear it down and rebuild a monumental, beautiful building that will give Washington the destination music hall it richly deserves.
The Kennedy Center was built in the 1960s and is a testimony to the drab, uninspired architecture of that age. It commands a fantastic site, facing the Potomac River on a bluff visible from the air and from land as visitors enter the city. It should be the type of building that commands awe and attention from all who see it.
Instead, it is a flat, drab rectangle with unadorned columns and an off-white marble exterior. Nothing about it screams American greatness — nothing draws the viewer’s gaze as they fly or drive by. The circular Watergate building across the street has more visual interest than the country’s leading theater.
The interior is, if anything, even more depressing. It is nearly bereft of adornment aside from some plaster tableaus and a semi-abstract bust of President John F. Kennedy’s head. Its grand foyer is 63 feet high, making the public feel utterly insignificant, and patrons must walk through corridors hundreds of feet long. Nothing to delight the eye or educate the mind, all to no purpose other than the pompous grandiosity that mere size inspires.
It didn’t have to be this way. Eero Saarinen, one of the leading architects of that era, designed fabulous buildings that evoked the feelings and mores of their occupants. The passenger terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport, for example, curves upward, evoking flight. Saarinen’s Gateway Arch in St. Louis is simple and majestic, dominating its vista and symbolically embracing America’s Westward expansion. Instead, Washington has an eminently forgettable building that confirms any foreign prejudices that America is all about power and unappreciative of beauty.
Tearing the building down lets Trump build anew. It lets him put his own unforgettable mark on the capital, one that can express U.S. exceptionalism and history.
He can do this using any variety of examples of architectural styles. The neoclassical style he seems to prefer is best demonstrated by Paris’s legendary Opera House. Its exterior features columns, golden statues, and a bronze dome. Its interior features marble floors, grand staircases, murals, and so much gold-leaf trimming that even the gold-obsessed president might be satisfied.
The Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a superb example of the eclectic style. Its exterior has the feel of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, while the interior is richly decorated with sculpture, stained glass, and columns. It also uses gold trims to accent its marble and granite columns and stairs.
Philadelphia has two examples of American versions of these grand buildings, the Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera House. Their exteriors use European classic styling with American understated decoration, while the interiors are attractive without the type of luxurious adornment that people typically associate with imperial majesty.
Art Nouveau produced the sumptuous Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, Spain. It, too, is richly decorated, although not as much as in Paris or Buenos Aires. It makes more use of curvature and space, while not being so large as to make the patron feel like an ant crawling toward his ant hole such as the Kennedy Center does.
Chicago’s Lyric Opera House is a wonderful example of the Art Deco period. Contained within a skyscraper, its exterior is frankly unimpressive, but its interior combines restraint with impressive decoration. Its reliance on angles and lines is similar to the Kennedy Center’s, but it strives for beauty and elegance rather than mere functionality.
Sydney’s iconic Opera House is perhaps the most photographed opera exterior in the world. Its interior is nothing to write home about, unadorned and functional, although it maintains a sense of scale unlike the Kennedy Center. But its exterior! Oh, my, its exterior.
The house is built on a majestic site on Sydney’s legendary harbor. It is designed to evoke a ship, with its most famous feature, white shells rising on top of one another, looking like sails catching the full wind. From the side, it looks like a ship with a prow and a bow. It even has windows and balconies at the front of the building such as a captain’s deck on a cruise ship. There’s a reason it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a tourist destination for millions each year.
A NEW WORLD ORDER IS HERE, AND IT’S HERE TO STAY
Fans of contemporary architecture can champion Frank Gehry’s visionary Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Its exterior is all curves and covered in gleaming steel. It features multiple structures, looking almost like its own city block as each rises to a different height. It is situated next to the 1960s-era Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which is very reminiscent of the Kennedy Center. Comparing the two, one can easily see which commands the eye and which fades into the background.
Washington and the public deserve a temple of beauty to welcome musicians and actors. The Kennedy Center is not it — only a total revamp can give us what we need. Mr. Trump, tear down this building!
