Kalm says dictators alone built triumphal arches over past century

Triumphal arches have largely become a thing of the past and have been erected only by dictators over the last century, architecture historian Mart Kalm told ERR programme Ringvaade.

Kalm said the tradition originated in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, between the sixth and first centuries, gate-shaped monuments were erected beneath which armies returning from victories passed with their war spoils, including slaves and animals.

US President Donald Trump recently confirmed plans to build a triumphal arch in Washington. Kalm said the project reflected Trump’s apparent dream of becoming an emperor, although the United States is a republic. He added that the preliminary designs combined features of various triumphal arches.

The planned arch would be 86 metres high, a few metres taller than Tallinn’s Olympic Hotel. Kalm said Washington’s large distances made such a scale understandable in terms of proportion, but described the project as pointless gigantomania. He added that if the idea was already being pursued, the design was at least a professional solution.

Kalm considers the Arc de Triomphe in Paris the most famous triumphal arch. He contrasted Napoleon’s military victories with Trump, asking whether anyone could name a war Trump had won. Kalm said that although Napoleon’s fortunes later changed, much of Europe was filled with triumphal arches inspired by victories over him.

One of the most recent arches stands in North Korea. Built in 1982 by an authoritarian regime, it commemorates the struggle against Japan. Kalm said the arch showed the kind of figure Trump wanted to resemble, while adding that Russia was trying to give the North Korean regime some legitimacy.

Kalm also noted that an arch had been considered in Estonia. In 1944, architect Edgar Kuusik designed a victory monument to the Soviet army while Soviet forces had already entered the country, shortly before the end of the war. The monument was planned for Freedom Square in Tallinn, beside an art building designed by Kuusik a decade earlier, on the site of St John’s Church. Kalm noted the irony that Kuusik was also a holder of Estonia’s Cross of Liberty.