A Monument is a Warning
When we think of monuments, we typically think of scale: “monumental” means grand, and “monuments” are big. Their tone is big, too: boisterous, confident, often ostentatious, frequently bombastic. These monuments seek attention, towering over the viewer in shimmering bronze or marble. They sing in the key of triumph.
But there is another meaning to the word “monument,” and a more dire one. It comes from the Latin monere, to instruct or advise, as in “admonish” and “monitor,” and to warn, leading to “monster”—a monster being a foreshadowing of darker things to come.
Image from a White House produced video posted Nov., 2025
Donald Trump may consider his approach to monument making to be in the model of proud commemorations, but I can only see it through the lens of monstrosity. It is not just the horrific assault on our country’s existing monuments that worries me or the ways they are being manipulated into state-sponsored lies, but also the monuments that are being erected in their place and the stories being propagated around them.
In theory, monuments look back at where we have been, but the monument-as-warning reminds us to direct our gaze forward, too.
Take the White House. It is a monument by default. Built in 1790s (and subsequently rebuilt) not in commemoration but to serve as the presidential residence, it has become one of the most familiar emblems of American power. “The White House” means “The President.” An assault on the White House—such as several recent attempts to pass its gates and enter its grounds—is rightfully understood as an assault on the president himself. Symbolism aside, it is still a house, with living quarters, a home (Oval) office, and spaces for entertaining, including a large lawn, formal dining room, and a ballroom (not uncommon in grand houses of its era) in the East Wing.
The Trump administration has decided to tear that ballroom down and replace it with something three times as big. If the president wants to return to the sober classicism of Washington, D.C.’s original plan and its buildings, as he has claimed, he is failing mightily. Classicism is an architecture of proportion and ratios, of balance and measure. It is characterized by symmetry and stylistic discretion. As such, it is also articulate, because deviations from the norm stand out. It doesn’t take an architectural critic to read the massive ego embedded in this revision of a classicizing building.
As we watch this ballroom go up, we should recognize it not only as monumental in scale, but as a monument in and of itself. Though it is strange to frame a newly-built ballroom in these terms, it makes perfect sense in today’s D.C. A ballroom is a place of social showmanship and hierarchies, of peacocking and air-kisses, of slick entertainment and transient, transactional relationships. What better symbol of Donald Trump and his approach to politics? What better form of self-aggrandizement for a self-styled real estate magnate?
In the context of the countless monstrous things the Trump administration is doing, the rebuilding of the White House ballroom is trivial. It is regrettable that we have lost a piece of architectural patrimony, especially one so prominently tied to of our country’s shameful history of enslavement (the building’s official website no longer mentions the enslaved people who built it, though it vaunts the Irish architect). It is unfortunate that its replacement will likely be a piece of architectural schlock inspired by the hotel industry. And it is scandalous that the whole project has been pushed ahead without any consideration for the voices of experts and the public, the ordinary citizens who care about their country’s heritage and history. This ballroom perfectly reflects Trump’s worldview, and is thus fittingly considered a monument to him and his era.
But this monument is also a warning.
When it comes to Trump, it may seem too late to speak of warnings. He has shown who he is and what he wants in his radical upheaval of tradition and norms, including in the landscape of arts and culture—the “heroicizing” agenda of the NEH, the forced rewrite of interpretative signage in museums and national parks, and the all-americana take-over of the Kennedy Center, for example. (As I write this, news is breaking of a restored Christopher Columbus statue installed on the White House grounds. As usual, it’s hard to keep up with this administration.) But ostentatious-real-estate-as-monument is of a different cast, placing Trump alongside rulers from Nero to Louis XIV to Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin.
Authoritarians build palaces to themselves, grand and frequently gaudy, far from the reaches of ordinary people. They employ expensive materials, stuff them with treasures, and lock the gates. Trump has Mar-a-Lago, of course, but apparently this is not enough. He’s set on turning the White House, technically still the “People’s House,” into another version of his personal playground.
We should be angry, and we should beware. The man who loves a party and who builds a ballroom for a thousand people is unlikely to want to move out soon. He must be envisioning the galas he will host and the admirers that will turn out to pay him tribute. Why else do this? Trump has never shown that he cares about anyone else or about our country’s future beyond his own horizons. His monstrous new East Wing is all about him. From the perspective of real estate investments (how handy that we the taxpayers are covering the bill), it looks like he plans to stay in the White House for quite some time.
Let's take the East Wing ballroom as a warning of what Trump really intends, and let’s take it seriously.
(I’ve always found the “No Kings” slogan a bit silly, but it feels more true every day. Please get out there and protest this weekend!)