Interior Department Plans 250-Foot Triumphal Arch, Tallest in the World

The Trump administration submitted new renderings to Washington's Commission on Fine Arts for a 250-foot triumphal arch to be built at Memorial Circle near Arlington National Cemetery, a structure that would become the tallest triumphal arch in the world.

The proposal calls for the arch to be roughly 250 feet tall, more than twice the height of the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial across the Potomac River, and roughly 30 feet taller than the current world record holder, the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City.

The mockups, produced by Harrison Design, portray a towering white monument along the banks of the Potomac River, evoking the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The design features gilded ornamentation, four lion statues, a winged figure crowning the top, and the inscription "One Nation Under God" emblazoned across its facade. The opposite side of the arch would carry the phrase "Liberty and Justice For All."

The arch is slated for construction in Memorial Circle, a prominent roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery, directly across the river from the Lincoln Memorial. The arch would rise at one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge and has been framed by its proponents as a means to celebrate America's 250th anniversary.

At a dinner, Trump described the site's long-empty history: "At the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, you have a circle that was built 150 years ago. You have two columns on one side, two columns on the other, yet in the middle, just a circle. And everyone in the past had said something was supposed to be built there. But a thing called the Civil War interfered." Presented with models of varying scale, Trump said: "Small, medium and large — whichever one, they look good. I happen to think the larger one looks, by far, the best."

On February 19, 2026, the advocacy group Public Citizen filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Vietnam War veterans to stop the project, arguing it had not received proper review. The veterans group argued that the project would dishonor the service of veterans by obstructing the view to Arlington National Cemetery and "would degrade their personal experience when visiting Arlington Cemetery or traveling around Memorial Circle and on the Memorial Avenue Corridor."

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806, stands as one of the most prominent historical precedents for the monument type. At 164 feet, it would fall nearly 90 feet short of what the Trump administration is now formally proposing. The Commission on Fine Arts, the congressionally established body that must weigh in on the design, received the Interior Department's filing on April 10.