Call for Nominations – Landslide 2026: Erasing American History – Report to Highlight Nationally Significant Threatened Cultural Landscapes
Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom | T: 202.483.0553 | M: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@tclf.org
The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s annual thematic report and digital exhibition
Washington, D.C. (April 7, 2026) – The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization, today announced “Erasing American History” as the subject of its annual thematic Landslide report about threatened landscapes and landscape features and issued a call for nominations. As we commemorate one of the greatest moments in our nation’s history—the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—we are simultaneously also witnessing the erasure of irreplaceable cultural resources that reflect and interpret facets of our shared history. Inaugurated in 2004, the annual thematic Landslide report and exhibition highlights nationally significant cultural landscapes and landscape features that are threatened. The report will be accompanied by a complementary online exhibition, which will include newly commissioned photographs and historical images, site plans, other archival materials. The deadline for nominations is June 12, 2026. Questions or Landslide nominations can be submitted to Nord Wennerstrom (nord@tclf.org)—Download the Nomination Form.
Erasure, specifically targeting cultural landscapes, is due to multiple causes ranging from redevelopment projects that claim to require a blank canvas to deliberate acts emblematic of the mindset that “history is written by the winners.” Cases of erasure that have attracted national attention include the East Wing of the White House that was razed in October 2025; its proposed replacement, a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which would dwarf the 55,000-square-foot Executive Mansion, would alter key visual and spatial relationships and parts of the physical layout that are foundational to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.’s design of 1935 (Olmsted’s plan has guided management decisions for more than 90 years).
In addition, President Trump’s March 27, 2025, Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” has affected how history is conveyed and interpreted at National Park sites: in Philadelphia, interpretive signage regarding enslavement have been removed at the President’s House at Independence Hall National Park; signage at World War II-era Japanese American confinement sites are being altered; a rainbow flag at the Stonewall National Memorial, the first national park site dedicated to LGBTQ history, was recently removed; and others.
Another example in the nation’s capital is the bulldozing of Black Lives Matter Plaza. The plaza’s surgical insertion along a two-block stretch of 16th Street, N.W. immediately north of the White House and Lafayette Square (part of President’s Park), began in June 2020 amid nationwide protests about the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In a press release on October 28, 2021, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the completion of Black Lives Matter Plaza and that it was a “permanent installation.”
In early March 2025, following threats by President Trump and Congress of a federal take-over of the city and loss of federal funding, Mayor Bowser announced the plaza would be erased. On X the mayor stated: “The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference.”
TCLF’s efforts to make threatened sites visible includes significant African American cultural landscapes, such as burial grounds, neighborhoods, gardens, and public landscapes. In fact, the interest in telling a fuller story engenders a feeling that landscape architect Randy Hester identifies as spatial nostalgia—“the charged scene, personally symbolic and perhaps sacred, [that] can bring tears of joy or sadness to our eyes for an entire lifetime.”
Unfortunately, the threat of erasure is again on the rise. This runs counter to the very idea of a cultural landscape as a palimpsest, the layers of which can serve as a text that tells us much about ourselves. Landscapes reflect our cultural values, traditions, and history through their use, built features, and settlement patterns; they range from gardens and plazas to entire neighborhoods, regions, and expansive rural areas.
The deadline for nominations is June 12, 2026. Questions or Landslide nominations can be submitted to Nord Wennerstrom (nord@tclf.org)—Download the Nomination Form.
About Landslide
As an education and advocacy organization, TCLF’s makes visible, instills value, and engages the public in these myriad cultural landscapes that collectively convey who we are, where we've come from, and where we are going as a nation. One of TCLF's principal education and advocacy initiative is Landslide and the annual thematic Landslide reports about cultural landscapes that are threatened and at-risk. The goal is to draw immediate and lasting attention to threatened sites by making them more visible, revealing their value, and promoting public engagement in the form of advocacy and stewardship.
About The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1998 to connect people to places. TCLF educates and engages the public to make our shared landscape heritage more visible, identify its value, and empower its stewards. Through its website, publishing, lectures, and other events, TCLF broadens support and understanding for cultural landscapes. TCLF is also home to the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.
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