Philip Kennicott
@philipkennicott.bsky.social
Senior Art and Architecture Critic at The Washington Post, author of Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning (Norton).🐕🎹 https://www.philipkennicott.com/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/philip-kennicott/
Trump wants to fence off Lafayette Park, the historic square north of the White House. The fence will allow public access to be shut off like a faucet. And it will be off all the time. Bin Laden created the security panic that Trump now exploits. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The architect of 9/11 built the world we inhabit today
The changes to our urban design, architecture and everyday life are so profound we can hardly see them.
washingtonpost.com
America will still be feeling the economic impacts of its hardline and gratuitously cruel immigration policies in 2076, when Pierre Damas Bel might have been retired, enjoying a life well lived, surrounded by children and grand children. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The shame in a photo of an asylum seeker before his death belongs to us all
Pierre Damas Bel stepped into highway traffic after losing his immigration status. Before that, he posed for a picture of his ankle bracelet.
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The president mocked one of the ball room case plaintiffs as a "woman out walking her dog." From my latest: We are all, apparently, just out walking the dog, while our world is pillaged, demolished and ground beneath the wheel. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | What a Churchill quote reveals about the Supreme Court’s ballroom decision
Chief Justice John Roberts cited Winston Churchill in his dissent, addressing a debate about the role of beauty in public life and architecture.
washingtonpost.com
The administration attacks Kehinde Wiley, and now we have to defend Kehinde Wiley. There is a cynical race to the bottom in all of this. Wiley lost his way as an artist (and faces serious allegations as a person); but Trump’s attacks on him are scurrilous. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Removal of a ‘woke’ painting signals a new line of attack on artists
A State Department attempt to sell an innocuous painting by Kehinde Wiley, painter of a famous Obama portrait and a difficult artist to defend, is the loudest of dog whistles.
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The National Symphony Orchestra announces its season outside the Kennedy Center, its home for more than a half-century. The center's marquee ensemble is unveiling its season months late as it faces severe financial turmoil. w @philipkennicott.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
National Symphony Orchestra announces season outside the Kennedy Center
The centerpiece orchestra announced its season months later than usual, at venues away from its longtime home.
washingtonpost.com
Trump, Iran and the Kennedy Center, a tale of two quagmires. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Closing the Kennedy Center may be the best of bad options
Renovations are welcome. But after two years, the Kennedy Center may end up right back where it started: in a self-imposed quagmire.
washingtonpost.com
And thus, a First Amendment space hosts a symbolic infringement of the Third Amendment (“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner …”) in a city currently occupied by thousands of National Guard troops. www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...
Column | How an enslaver’s statue became the center of Trump’s exhibit at Freedom Plaza
A lesser-known semiquincentennial project occupies a central square in the nation’s capital.
washingtonpost.com
I spoke with Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour about the disastrous changes to historic preservation rules, and the President's assault on the Smithsonian. There's a connection, of course. www.pbs.org/video/target...
PBS News Hour | Federal board votes to weaken historic site protections | Season 2026
Board packed with Trump allies votes to weaken protections for historic sites
pbs.org
Posting warning signs at the Smithsonian is ridiculous. But enlisting the National Park Service as the aggressor in a campaign against the Smithsonian could destroy yet another beloved American institution. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | I’ve visited the Smithsonian hundreds of times. Warnings aren’t needed.
An executive order from President Donald Trump may be laughable, but it shouldn’t be laughed off.
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It seems only one man on the planet wants to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white, and that’s Trump. But what he is trying to do to historic preservation laws is even worse. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump’s plan to paint the Eisenhower could damage the stone — and the law
The administration’s proposal risks harming both the historic building and the system of reviews that protects structures like it.
washingtonpost.com
www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0... This is beautifully written on the toll of unnecessary and tragic loss.💔 @philipkennicott.bsky.social
Column | What a photo of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo reveals about his humanity, and our own
Numbers don’t capture the toll of our losses. Details do.
washingtonpost.com
A White House report alleges radical bias at the National Museum of American History. But the assembled evidence reveals a large and vibrant institution carrying out its mission. (@philipkennicott.bsky.social) Gift article: www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The only bias uncovered in the White House Smithsonian report is its own
A White House report alleges radical bias at the American History museum. But the assembled evidence reveals a large and vibrant institution carrying out its mission.
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The Trump administration has released its report attacking the Smithsonian for its telling of U.S. history. It is a tendentious piece of trash. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The only bias uncovered in the White House Smithsonian report is its own
A White House report alleges radical bias at the American History museum. But the assembled evidence reveals a large and vibrant institution carrying out its mission.
washingtonpost.com
I can't pick a favorite part. My favorite part is all of it. (Ok, maybe "squatting in an Auntie Anne's".)
Philip Kennicott@philipkennicott.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe Great American State Fair: "...it felt like a trade show for Christian groups, tourist boards and the military industrial complex..." www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
The Great American State Fair: "...it felt like a trade show for Christian groups, tourist boards and the military industrial complex..." www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The Great American State Fair feels rushed, simulated and oddly sterile
The administration’s signature 250th celebration is strangely short on nostalgia — and long on defense contractors and “Fox & Friends.”
washingtonpost.com
"...a violation of our values at a level deeper than mere politics, a violation that feels not just wrong, but ugly. The exceptional nation is exceptional for how often it happily violates its own sense of dignity. " www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Joe Rogan called the White House UFC event ‘so America.’ He’s right.
The “Claw” bursting out of the White House grounds is the perfect metaphor for the moment, injecting bloody spectacle into the country’s birthday celebration.
washingtonpost.com
Trump can still destroy the Kennedy Center, but Friday's court ruling requiring his name to come off could be a turning point in his assault on our cultural institutions. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump’s name may come off the Kennedy Center. He could still destroy it.
The Kennedy Center saga encapsulates all of the needless destruction of the Trump administration. The center’s troubles may not be over yet.
washingtonpost.com
One of the most contested exhibitions in one of the most contested Smithsonian museums reopens today. The changes to the America's Presidents gallery are subtle, in some cases canny, but with a few troubling omissions. The museum is in survival mode. www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...
Column | The Smithsonian’s most contested exhibition is back on view, mostly intact
The National Portrait Gallery's curators have found a way to counter the Trump administration: with facts.
washingtonpost.com
Thanking yourself, on our behalf, for work that we paid for...a classical authoritarian move. So is using the accusation of ingratitude as a bullying tactic. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump demands gratitude in D.C. So he put up banners thanking himself.
Signs appearing around the capital twist appreciation and patriotism into an authoritarian knot.
washingtonpost.com
"...the real function of this ballroom isn’t about governance or diplomacy. It’s about fundraising, about endless rubber-chicken dinners for cadres of donors seeking influence and business leaders hungry for government contracts." www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump’s ballroom is about money — not security or state dinners
His favorite project wouldn’t just transform the White House; it would set in stone his regal conception of the presidency.
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Guerrilla artists use public space to defend public space, and that's an urgent need in Washington where Trump is posting giant banners with his face on them. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Guerrilla art is flourishing in Trump’s Washington
Anti-Trump street artists and anonymous collectives are using an old protest technique in Washington: Sending messages into the void.
washingtonpost.com
I spoke with NPR's Scott Tong about the proposed Triumphal Arch, and why it's not wanted or needed. www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...
How Trump's proposed triumphal arch would change the nation's capital
President Trump wants a triumphal arch to be built in Washington, D.C., on a traffic circle between the entrance to the Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
wbur.org
Good discussion with art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott about Trump's ugly ballroom and bizarre arch, and how he has been "running roughshod" over the processes that are supposed to govern building in Washington, D.C. www.thebulwark.com/p/a-250-foot...
A 250-Foot Monument to Trump's Ego (w/ Philip Kennicott)
Washington Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott discusses Trump’s physical desecration of Washington DC.
thebulwark.com
“The men and women who lie in Arlington deserve our quiet, humble gratitude, not this monstrous monument to power, war and one man’s ego.” www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
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Will the United States commit genocide at 8 p.m.? We were once admired for our technological prowess, but apocalyptic rhetoric from the President makes it difficult to feel the same euphoria for the Artemis II mission as we once did for Apollo 11. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump’s dark rhetoric eclipses the new wonders of the Space Age
The Apollo missions offered an unprecedented promise of global progress. But Artemis II is fraught by one nation’s threats to obliterate another.
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Isolde has a baby at the end of Tristan und Isolde? A remarkably dumb idea, which undermines the meaning and emotional power of the opera. Some thoughts. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | The Met gave a dark opera a happy ending. What’s that say about America?
A director’s invention in “Tristan und Isolde” is causing controversy at the Metropolitan Opera, the nation’s preeminent but troubled opera house.
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I go back to Benjamin Latrobe, Adam Smith and the founding fathers to argue that Trump is the most destructive force to hit Washington since the British burned it in 1814. www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump is the biggest threat to D.C.’s architectural splendor since War of 1812
President Trump’s garish, piecemeal changes to Washington’s urban design and architecture are poised to destroy symbolism upheld for centuries.
washingtonpost.com
Trump is the biggest threat to D.C.’s architectural splendor since War of 1812 @philipkennicott.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...
Column | Trump is the biggest threat to D.C.’s architectural splendor since War of 1812
President Trump’s garish, piecemeal changes to Washington’s urban design and architecture are poised to destroy symbolism upheld for centuries.
washingtonpost.com
