I’ve been a fan of arches since 1971 when my partner and I first saw the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. We held to our wandering path seeking arches and savored the Wellington Arch in London’s Trafalgar Square (victory over Napoleon), Rome’s Arch of Constantine as well as several other triumphal European structures utilizing the arch.
My idolatry of arches remains strong today since I’ve used educational travel funds to return to Europe again and again since 1976 — at least 25 times. We were ever on the trail traveling in search of durable stone monuments — think of Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall and even Germany’s Brandenburg Gate — that dot the original areas of western civilization, and many come in arch form.
A public high school kid, I managed to work my way through UCSB and wangle two history degrees. Judy and I immediately moved to West Germany for two years and found work as foreign language teachers in Bavaria (4.1.1. for travel details).
Through colossally good fortune, I had professor Frank Frost as my Ph.D. adviser and advocate. Art, architecture and anthropology are big on any would-be ancient historian’s course of study, and Frost emphasized active travel to Greece and Italy along with a command of specific foreign languages, ancient and modern.
Sponsored by Frost, I earned a yearlong study and travel fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1975, the so-called Taggart Fellowship in Underwater Archeology. It allowed us a half-year in New York to study at the Met, and then nine more months in Greece (and Italy). We made a comfortable fellowship cover two of us for a year in New York City and then Greece, which was ruled by the fascist colonels at the time.
Thus, Judy and I have developed and fed an intense travel bug for more than 50 years, and spotting cool stone architecture such as temples and aqueducts pops right up in this educational path. I should add that Judy speaks fluent French and German, and I get along in German as well. Visits to the Pantheon, the Parthenon, Chartres Cathedral and Knossos became the norm, and we often revisited some of them. Having an espresso outside Verona’s Roman-era coliseum was memorable with Pavarotti’s voice resounding from within the ancient venue (sold out).
Many of us are most familiar with the various arch ruins scattered throughout Europe, and also plenty more in former British Empire colonies such as India and New Zealand. Germany’s 1789 Brandenburg Gate with its triumphal arches is modeled after the ancient Propylaea, the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens where the Parthenon still stands today. Buildings of stone often last a very long time; Stonehenge is 5,000 years old, and the Pantheon almost 2,000 years old.
Arches are quite handy and useful in large construction projects, and the curving form itself is attractive.
If you wish to observe a celebrated local example of the arch in construction, drive up Highway 154 and check out the outstanding 1964 Cold Spring Canyon Arch Bridge with its spectacular and much-photographed arch.
When traveling in southern France during a sabbatical year from teaching, my partner and I visited Nimes and drove out to view the Roman aqueduct there, the famous Pont du Gard, with its many captivating arches. What stands out there is the effective use of the arch by Roman engineers. Constructing the Pont du Gard at state expense ensured gravity-induced water flow high above the Gardon River Valley and revealed how the Roman Empire supported its colonial cities in Gaul (France today).
While living in Munich, we often walked by the city’s prominent celebratory arch: the huge 70-foot-high Siegestor (“victory arch”) built between 1843 and 1852 to commemorate the bravery of the Bavarian Army. Sieg means “victory.” However, there is something quite different about this 19th century German triumphal arch since it needed to be repurposed after World War II. The highly ornate Siegestor victory arch had been significantly damaged by B-17 bomber raids during World War II, and it had been simply left there for years afterward.
When our West German NATO allies rebuilt the Siegestor in the late 1950s, they kept the usual decorations on one side, including an original 19th century inscription: “TO THE BAVARIAN ARMY (Dem Bayrischen Heere).” Germans needed to be very careful here because it was less than 15 years after World War II had ended, and Holocaust memories were pungent. Rather than re-adorn the repaired arch with baroque high-relief sculptures on both sides and still dare to present it as a “Victory Arch” — Adolf Hitler’s Germany had been totally defeated by April 1945 — regretful Germans chose to leave the other side completely blank.
The final inscription on this blank side has a single thought-provoking line inscribed at the bottom: “DEDICATED TO VICTORY, DESTROYED BY WAR, URGING PEACE (DEM SIEG GEWEIHT, VOM KRIEG ZERSTÖRT, ZUM FRIEDEN MAHNEND).”
All of the other victory arches I know celebrate winning — victory — often via conquest, as well as memorializing their fallen soldiers. Wellington’s Arch in London symbolizes the victory at Waterloo and signals the height of the British Empire.
But no, not the German Siegestor after World War II in crushed Deutschland: The new 1958 intentionally blank side proclaims a moral lesson. Mahnend could also mean “admonishing [us]” for peace (Frieden). So the inscription reads dedicated to Bavarian victory in the 19th century, destroyed later in World War II in the 20th century, this monumental 21st century arch urges and admonishes the onlooker to consider Frieden (peace).
President Donald Trump himself openly acknowledged his extravagant admiration for the 164-foot Arc de Triomphe in 2017 when he attended the July 14 Bastille Day military parade in Paris, at which he was also the guest of honor.
Today, he wants to build his own American victory arch in Washington, D.C., that’s to be 166 feet high and swelling to more than 225 feet when the ornate statuary on top is added. This Trump Arch would commemorate our colossal victory over Iran in this recent war he initiated.
Why not construct a memorial arch in Washington funded by ordinary citizens’ voluntary donations? This 168-foot arch could celebrate peace (Frieden), and wag “an admonishing finger” (mit mahnendem Zeigefinger) as a warning against foreign wars, imperial over-reach and overweening American hyper-nationalism.
In 2023, The Rolling Stones wailed their prescient tune “Live By the Sword” in their album “Hackney Diamonds”; listen here and compare the Gospel of Matthew, 26:52.
4.1.1.
New Zealand has the Bridge of Remembrance in Christchurch, a triple archway commemorating fallen soldiers. India has the 1921 India Gate memorial arch in New Delhi, designed by Edwin Lutyens for the British Empire; countless additional stone monuments abound in Europe and North America.
My funding: After the Met fellowship, I had a UC fellowship for another year, then assistance from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition (three summers in Cyprus), three one-year sabbaticals and five Boyd summer travel grants from Crane School, and a National Endowment for the Humanities summer study grant on Alexander the Great.
