The President of the United States declares with characteristic bombast that his proposed UFC fighting arena, a structure that apes the Eiffel Tower with a brazen lack of subtlety, may remain. British architects, that punctilious breed, raise safety concerns. They mutter about load-bearing capacities and evacuation routes. How tiresome. How utterly stifling.
We have seen this before. The Roman emperors built amphitheatres that defied engineering norms. The Colosseum stood for centuries. Of course, it also collapsed in parts. But what is safety compared to spectacle? Trump, like Nero before him, understands the visceral appeal of the colossal gesture. A cage-fighting arena shaped like the Eiffel Tower. It is absurd. It is glorious. It is a monument to the age of the strongman.
The British, ever the cautious custodians of decorum, have their tape measures and their risk assessments. They forget that the spirit of the age concerns not safety but significance. The arena is not a building; it is a symbol. It declares that America, under this president, will out-Eiffel France, will out-Rome the ancient world. The safety of the participants is secondary. The boldness of the vision is primary.
Critics will point to the fall of empires. They will say that decadence is when architects design for ego rather than function. They are correct. But decadence is also rather magnificent. The Titanic was a marvel of engineering until it struck an iceberg. The Hindenburg was a triumph of design until it burned. Trump's arena will serve its purpose: to host brawls in the shadow of a pseudo-Parisian silhouette. It will be a stage for tribalism, a temple to testosterone. That it may collapse is merely a footnote.
We should not be surprised. The architectural world long ago abandoned the eternal for the novel. Now Trump accelerates this trend by rejecting even the pretence of safety. It is a logical endpoint. Why build for a thousand years when you can build for a hundred thousand tweets? Why consider wind shear when you can consider viral marketing? The British architects are quaintly anachronistic. They live in a world of solidity and permanence. Trump lives in a world of digital immortality. The arena will either stand and be legendary, or fall and be even more legendary.
Let us not pretend this is new. The Victorians built the Crystal Palace, a glass edifice that burned down. They built the Tay Bridge, which collapsed in a storm. They built the Titanic, which sank. We mock their failures, but we admire their ambition. Trump's arena carries that same spirit, albeit with fewer top hats and more tattoos. It is vulgar. It is American. It is perfect.
The safety concerns are real. The Eiffel Tower was designed by engineers who understood their materials. Trump's builders may not share that understanding. But risk is the currency of the age. Brexit, pandemic, insurrection – we stagger from crisis to crisis. Why should architecture be exempt from the general chaos? Let the arena stand. Let it sway in the wind. Let the fighters dance atop a monument to folly. It will be a fitting emblem for a time that mistakes hubris for greatness.
In conclusion, the British architects are right to worry. But worry is for the timid. We are not timid. We are the descendants of Romans who watched the Colosseum flood for naval battles. We are the heirs of Victorians who built bridges that fell. Trump's arena is our contribution to the pile of grand, precarious structures. It may kill a few people. It will definitely infuriate the intellectuals. And that, in the end, is its purpose.
