The Architectural Follies of Trump's Washington, DC

Like all of Trump’s schemes, the idea of painting the basin swimming-pool blue (or American-flag blue) is maddeningly wrongheaded. As a lawsuit filed by the DC–based Cultural Landscape Foundation explains, “The Reflecting Pool’s profound reflective quality—achieved through deliberate design choices, including the dark color of its basin—creates the sweeping mirror image of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument that millions of visitors experience every year. The dark grey, achromatic basin was not incidental to the design. It was the design.”