A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Next, we turn to how President Trump is remaking the architecture and aesthetics to the nation’s capital.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: What I do best in life is build. I build buildings really well and really – and under budget and ahead of schedule. That’s what I do.
MARTÍNEZ: Trump is building a, quote, “National Garden of American Heroes” along the Potomac. Plans call for hundreds of statues of Americans from George Washington to Kobe Bryant. He’s closing the Kennedy Center – now the Trump Kennedy Center – for a two-year long renovation. He proposed a massive arch to be built between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. He turned the heart of the White House Rose Garden into a patio covered in stone. He tore down the White House’s East Wing and commissioned a 90,000-square-foot ballroom to replace it.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Long list, but there’s more. Trump is also resurfacing the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. The gray stone at the bottom is being covered in a color Trump calls American-flag blue. That’s not the only gray Trump wants to cover up in Washington. He wants to coat a federal building right next to the White House in white paint. NPR’s Neda Ulaby attended a meeting where officials heard public opposition to the painting plan.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Everyone was very nice to each other at this meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission. No decision sat on the table, just an airing of the proposal – painting over the violet gray granite of the grand Victorian structure now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
RYAN ERB: Our main goal is preserving the building. We all love the EEOB. I know, myself, I work in the building, and I see how beautiful it is every day.
ULABY: Ryan Erb works for the Trump administration. He was tasked with selling the proposal to an assortment of architects, professors, historic preservationists and people who identify themselves as ordinary tax-paying citizens. All of them were deeply opposed.
GREG WERKHEISER: We surveyed 25 of the nation’s leading architects, conservators and experts in masonry and paint regarding this exact proposal.
ULABY: Greg Werkheiser is a lawyer. He spoke on behalf of groups now suing the Trump administration over its handling of the Kennedy Center and the proposal for the EEOB.
WERKHEISER: Painting is a terrible idea, and no one with influence has yet had the courage to tell the president no.
ULABY: Nine experts explain that the president’s proposed mineral silicate paint is not intended for use on granite. It would permanently damage the stone’s surface, they said, trapping moisture there and in mortar joints. It would be irreversible and require constant costly maintenance. The president has said the building looks dingy. Historic preservationists at the meeting suggested that problem could be solved instead through nice landscaping and good lighting.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
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