Among his other ongoing projects, US President Donald Trump has spent much of his second term on a renovation. The Oval Office has been converted into a miniature palace festooned with gold bling, the rose garden has been paved over, a triumphal arch is planned and the new ballroom will be larger than the White House.
Why bother turning Washington into a royal “court”? Well, architecture makes a big difference to the ways power is practised and courted.
While it’s easy to see buildings and public spaces as somewhat neutral or superficial, it’s not. Like the frame of a painting, it frames the spaces in which politics takes place, both literally and symbolically.
