Inspiration for Trump's arch was sparked long before the design was first approved

"It's a small little club of people that have a fairly narrow lens for what they're interested in," said Charles Birnbaum, a landscape architect and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for public education about design. "We're seeing a complete avoidance of public review and public process that has underpinned this type of work since the Commission of Fine Arts was created in 1910."