What is then the difference between what we might call civic, post-Enlightenment classicism and the authoritarian classicism in which satraps so eagerly surround themselves? The difference—typically in architecture—is, of course, encoded in proportions, intentions, and context. Suffice it to say that the very same Roman Pantheon from two thousand years ago could become a point of reference for the library of the venerable University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, and also serve as a model for the Grosse Halle, the Great Hall—an enormous dome planned at the very heart of Germania, the world capital the rebuilt Berlin was meant to become after the war. The first of these projects was designed personally by Jefferson himself, a humanist philosopher and the third President of the United States who fought against slavery; the second was, of course, the joint work of Adolf Hitler and his beloved architect Albert Speer. For both, slavery was an indispensable modus operandi. Among the many concentration camps, those at Flossenbürg and Mauthausen were meant to supply millions of tons of granite to satisfy their megalomaniacal, classicizing dreams of towering buildings and compositional axes stretching to the horizon.
Yet while almost all motifs drawn from antiquity can be interpreted in such radically different ways—sometimes dictatorially, sometimes democratically—there is one among them that is unmistakably closest to the aura of despotism: the triumphal arch. It is
a peculiar form that resists simple classification. Sometimes placed within defensive walls as an entrance to a city, it is more often associated with freestanding architecture—an object then more symbolic and sculptural than functional. It spread in ancient Rome, forming the culminating moment of a triumphal military procession: an army marching with its leader at the head—the triumphator returning to the city after victorious battles—bringing treasures and captured slaves led on leashes.
The classical arch—modern ones most often inspired by the Roman arches of Titus and Constantine the Great—was, from its sheer size, through the expressive force of its stone blocks, to the narrative bas-relief scenes on its side walls, a clear emanation of imperial power. It was meant, in its entirety, to speak of victory, of rewarded soldiers, and of thanksgiving sacrifices offered to the gods. Yet in doing all this, the triumphal arch also carried a narrative of another’s defeat, often depicting in stone relief conquered armies, looted goods, and tributes rendered.
When reflecting on the essence of triumphal arches from today’s perspective, one might say that their architecture is as anti-pacifist as it can possibly be. It is a form that is thoroughly militarized, arrogant, and born of the blood of the defeated. It proclaims the victor’s appetite for further conquest, for violation, for bodies strewn across battlefields.
It is also worth realizing that even those arches erected not to commemorate a military triumph, but rather to honor a ruler or celebrate a peace, are nonetheless grounded in rigid hierarchies, domination, and submission. More often than not, they embody defeat—far more than one might initially assume. For any victory, regardless of its nature, if born of violent confrontation between human beings, inevitably leaves behind a residue of loss on both sides.
Hitler adored triumphal arches. One need only look at one of his watercolors from 1914, in which he painted Munich’s Victory Gate, or at his own sketch from the 1920s of an appallingly clumsy, monstrous triumphal arch, which could later be seen as a three-dimensional object on the famous model of the unrealized plan for Germania. Through architecture and urban planning he sought to awaken in Germans a “sense of heroism.” In Mein Kampf he wrote of ancient monumental buildings that they “were not created for some temporary purpose, but seemed destined for eternity.” He fantasized about an arch so gargantuan that the most famous modern one—the Parisian arch at the Place de l’Étoile—could fit entirely inside Hitler’s. He dreamed of outshining Paris,
a city that had been his secret longing since youth. No—painting was not his true, unrealized passion; as he claimed, it was architecture. He spent thousands of hours talking about architecture with Speer, and during the only three-hour visit to Paris in his life he devoted virtually no attention to painting. What truly interested him that day
What is then the difference between what we might call civic, post-Enlightenment classicism and the authoritarian classicism in which satraps so eagerly surround themselves? The difference—typically in architecture—is, of course, encoded in proportions, intentions, and context. Suffice it to say that the very same Roman Pantheon from two thousand years ago could become a point of reference for the library of the venerable University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, and also serve as a model for the Grosse Halle, the Great Hall—an enormous dome planned at the very heart of Germania, the world capital the rebuilt Berlin was meant to become after the war. The first of these projects was designed personally by Jefferson himself, a humanist philosopher and the third President of the United States who fought against slavery; the second was, of course, the joint work of Adolf Hitler and his beloved architect Albert Speer. For both, slavery was an indispensable modus operandi. Among the many concentration camps, those at Flossenbürg and Mauthausen were meant to supply millions of tons of granite to satisfy their megalomaniacal, classicizing dreams of towering buildings and compositional axes stretching to the horizon.
Yet while almost all motifs drawn from antiquity can be interpreted in such radically different ways—sometimes dictatorially, sometimes democratically—there is one among them that is unmistakably closest to the aura of despotism: the triumphal arch. It is
a peculiar form that resists simple classification. Sometimes placed within defensive walls as an entrance to a city, it is more often associated with freestanding architecture—an object then more symbolic and sculptural than functional. It spread in ancient Rome, forming the culminating moment of a triumphal military procession: an army marching with its leader at the head—the triumphator returning to the city after victorious battles—bringing treasures and captured slaves led on leashes.
The classical arch—modern ones most often inspired by the Roman arches of Titus and Constantine the Great—was, from its sheer size, through the expressive force of its stone blocks, to the narrative bas-relief scenes on its side walls, a clear emanation of imperial power. It was meant, in its entirety, to speak of victory, of rewarded soldiers, and of thanksgiving sacrifices offered to the gods. Yet in doing all this, the triumphal arch also carried a narrative of another’s defeat, often depicting in stone relief conquered armies, looted goods, and tributes rendered.
When reflecting on the essence of triumphal arches from today’s perspective, one might say that their architecture is as anti-pacifist as it can possibly be. It is a form that is thoroughly militarized, arrogant, and born of the blood of the defeated. It proclaims the victor’s appetite for further conquest, for violation, for bodies strewn across battlefields.
It is also worth realizing that even those arches erected not to commemorate a military triumph, but rather to honor a ruler or celebrate a peace, are nonetheless grounded in rigid hierarchies, domination, and submission. More often than not, they embody defeat—far more than one might initially assume. For any victory, regardless of its nature, if born of violent confrontation between human beings, inevitably leaves behind a residue of loss on both sides.
Hitler adored triumphal arches. One need only look at one of his watercolors from 1914, in which he painted Munich’s Victory Gate, or at his own sketch from the 1920s of an appallingly clumsy, monstrous triumphal arch, which could later be seen as a three-dimensional object on the famous model of the unrealized plan for Germania. Through architecture and urban planning he sought to awaken in Germans a “sense of heroism.” In Mein Kampf he wrote of ancient monumental buildings that they “were not created for some temporary purpose, but seemed destined for eternity.” He fantasized about an arch so gargantuan that the most famous modern one—the Parisian arch at the Place de l’Étoile—could fit entirely inside Hitler’s. He dreamed of outshining Paris,
a city that had been his secret longing since youth. No—painting was not his true, unrealized passion; as he claimed, it was architecture. He spent thousands of hours talking about architecture with Speer, and during the only three-hour visit to Paris in his life he devoted virtually no attention to painting. What truly interested him that day
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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