A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe (None of them in Paris) Part 2, Post-1900

Triumphal Arches - What is and What is Not

This is the third iteration of this post. The original, published 01-Apr-2014, was ‘Four Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris). The second, 29-June-2018, included newly collected arches, but also omitted Lutyens’ India Gate from the earlier post on the grounds it was a War Memorial, not a Triumphal Arch.

Defining a Triumphal Arch is difficult. Some arches called Triumphal have no associated triumph, and then there are Monumental Gates and War Memorials which can look very similar.

Although retaining the title, I have chosen a new and more inclusive definition for these posts (there are now two of them, this one and pre-1900). For the purposes of this blog an ‘Arc de Triomphe’ is an arch with no structural purpose. This definition includes war memorials built in arch form – like the India Gate mentioned above and also Monumental Gates as long as they were built to be symbolic i.e. not city gates built as part of a wall, even if the wall has long gone. The other qualification of inclusion is that I have been there and taken the photograph.

Arches of the 20th and 21st Centuries

For Classical Arches and modern arches built before 1900, see part 1.

All the arches below owe a debt to the Parisian Arc, (almost) the first modern Arc de Triomphe. In some cases the debt is very obvious, for others it is more in spirit than in substance.

So, In order of construction:

The Gateway of India, Mumbai

Completed 1924, Visited 14-Mar-2019

India

In 1911 George V became the first British monarch to visit the Jewel in the Crown. The Gateway of India on the Mumbai (then Bombay) waterfront was conceived as a symbolic entrance to the sub-continent for the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress.

Careful planning is not just a feature of the current British government. In 1911 the King and Queen passed through a world-beating cardboard gate, the stone version would be built once the design.was agreed.

The Gateway of India, Mumbai

The foundation stone was laid in March 1913 but another year passed before George Wittet’s Indo-Saracenic gate was given the go-ahead. Work was completed in 1924.

The gateway was subsequently used as a symbolic entrance to British India by important colonial personnel and the last British troops left through it at independence in 1948. Once unpopular as a representation of "conquest and colonisation" it is now a symbol of the city and an attraction to tourists and the army of street vendors that prey upon them.

The India Gate, New Delhi

Completed 1931, Visited 16-Feb-2013

At the start of the 20th century Edwin Lutyens had the rare privilege of designing a new capital for Britain’s most prized possession. The ceremonial Kingsway, leading to the Viceroy’s palace through the administrative heart of his new city, was modelled on The Mall, but with a nod to the Champs Elysées.

The India Gate, New Delhi

In 1921 he was commissioned to build a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died fighting for the Empire in the First World War. It is now a memorial to the 70,000 who died in conflicts between 1914 and 1920. Completed in 1931, The India Gate was placed at the opposite end of the Kingsway (now Rajpath) from the Viceroy’s Palace (now the President’s Palace). If the Kingsway nodded toward the Champs Elysées, the India Gate bows deeply towards the Arc de Triomphe.

Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest

Completed in 1936, Visited 25-Jun-2023

Romania

With the world organised as it is, we do occasionally have to remind ourselves that it was not always thus, and most nation-states, even in Europe, are creations of the 19th century; there was no Germany before 1860 and no Italy before 1861. A Romania, smaller than the present country, achieved recognition as an independent state in 1878 and a wooden Arcul de Triumf was constructed on what would become a roundabout in north east Bucharest.

The end of World War One saw the creation of a larger Romania that included most speakers of the Romanian language. This required the construction of a new arch on the same site. It was designed by Petre Antonescu with a concrete interior and a heavily sculpted plaster exterior. The plaster became badly eroded, so in 1936 Antonescu designed a new, more durable and less flamboyant arch and that has survived to this day (with restoration work in 2014).

Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest

It is not the grandest of Arcs de Triomphe, and rather outside the city centre, though its roundabout is negotiated by all visitors being driven into Bucharest from the airport. Military parades pass beneath it every 1st of December, Romania’s national day.

Monumento a la Revolución, Mexico City

Built 1938 Visited 18-Nov-2017

Mexico

Intended as a neo-classical home for the Federal Legislative Palace, building started in 1910 but was halted two years later by the revolution. In 1938 the completed first stage was adapted as a monument to the revolution that halted the building and it now contains the tombs of five revolutionary heroes including Pancho Villa.

Monument a la Revolucion, Mexico City

Transforming the core of a parliament building into a triumphal arch altered the neo-classical intention into something that has been described as Mexican socialist realism. Whatever the label, I think it’s ugly (sorry Mexico). At 75m high it is the world’s highest triumphal arch, but please don’t tell Kim Jung Un, he would only make his bigger.

Independence Monument, Phnom Penh

Cambodia

Completed 1958 Visited 17th of February 2014

This 37m high sandstone arch was built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodian independence from France some five years previously. It now also commemorates Cambodia's war dead - and there are a vast number for such a small country.

The Independence Monument, Phnom Penh

Designed by Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann to resemble a lotus shaped stupa, it sits at the intersection of Norodom Boulevard and Sihanouk Boulevard, and is the ceremonial, if not geographical, centre of the city. A flame is lit on the inner pedestal, usually by the King, at times of national celebration and commemoration.

Patouxai, Vientiane

Laos

Built 1957-68, Visited 1st of March 2014

Ironically, this Arc de Triomphe was built to commemorate victory over the French. Laos gained its independence in 1954 after the first Indo-China War and Patouxai (Victory Arch) was built in the late 1950s. Less reverently it is known as ‘The Vertical Runway’ as there is a story that it was built from concrete donated by the Americans for airport construction.

Patouxai (Victory Arch), Vientiane

There are stairs inside and shops at three levels. From the top there is a good view over the gardens below one way and down Lan Xang Avenue – Vientiane’s Champs Elysées the other.

The Arch of Triumph, Pyongyang

Built 1982, Visited 9th September 2013

North Korea

North Korea’s Arch of Triumph, in Triumphant Return Square, commemorates Kim Il Sung's return to the capital (in 1948) and his founding of the Democratic People's' Republic of Korea after almost single-handedly driving the Japanese colonialists from his country (DPRK history avoids mentioning the global conflict and ignores contributions made by other combatants, including the Chinese, British and the hated Americans).

It was built in 1982 to celebrate his 70th birthday and is is blatant rip off of the French ‘original’. Two interesting details are that a) it is 10m taller than the Parisian Arch and b) that fact was the first thing we were told when we arrived in the square; delusions of grandeur and a chip on the shoulder being most obvious attributes of Kim Il Sung and the dynasty he founded.

Arch of Triumph, Pyongyang

Pyongyang’s sparse traffic means that it is perfectly safe to stand in the middle of the ‘Champs Elysées’ to take a photograph.

Eternal Flame, Martyrs Alley, Baku

Opened 9th of October 1998 Visited 12th of August 2014

Azerbaijan

The events of Azerbaijan’s Black January are little known in the UK.

In 1990 in, the dying days of its empire the Soviet Union declared a state of emergency in Azerbaijan. The Popular Front responded by imposing roadblocks around Baku which Soviet troops broke through, killing some 130 unarmed protestors. The Russian claims that the first shots came from the Azeri side, are hotly disputed. What our otherwise admirable Azeri guide did not tell us was that the state of emergency was declared to stop a pogrom which had killed 90 of Baku’s Armenian residents. What the Armenians never mentioned when we were there, was that the pogrom was provoked by Armenia granting citizenship to ethnic Armenians in the Azeri district of Nagorno Karabakh. What the Azeris forget to mention..... and so on in a time-honoured chicken-and-egg argument. The resulting Azerbaijan-Armenia war ended in 1994 with Karabakh becoming a de facto independent state (now called Artsakh) and Azerbaijan feeling miffed. Negotiations – and occasional shootings - continue. [Including a major outbreak in 2020.]

In Martyr's Alley the 130 who died in Black January are commemorated with names and photographs in black marble. At the end is an eternal flame.

Eternal Flame, Martyr's Alley, Baku

The eternal flame is the biggest test of my new rule for deciding what should be in and what out. Can it really be called an arch? Is it more of an elongated, heavyweight gazebo? I said I would be inclusive, so it is in.

The Arch of Bender

Built 2008 Visited  27th June 2018

Transnistria

Bender (or Bendery, sometimes Tighina) is a city on the right bank of the River Dniester in the breakaway Republic of Transnistria, officially part of Moldova. Bender was on the front line in many of the wars between the Russian and Ottoman Empires, its fortress being taken by the Russians in 1779, 1789 and 1806 (and lost in between). An arch commemorating the Russian capture of Bender Fort in 1806 was erected in Chişinău, the Moldovan capital, but was destroyed, along with much else, in 1944.

The Arch of Bender, Bender, Transnistria

This arch in Bender is a 2008 replica of that destroyed arch. The major result of the 1806-12 war was the Russian Empire’s gain of Bessarabia (approximately Moldova and Transnistria), so the arch is a message, or warning, from the Russian orientated Transnistrians to the Moldovans and their European ambitions.

Porta Macedonia, Skopje

North Macedonia

Built 2011 Visited May 2015

The Porta Macedonia was designed by Valentina Stefanovska as part of the then Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s ‘Skopje 2014’ project which saddled the capital with a series of grandiose monuments at great expense. Despite its name it is not a gate, nor is it a war memorial, but the design is classic Triumphal Arch, so that is what it must be, though apart from commemorating 20 years of Macedonian independence it is unclear what the ‘triumph’ was.

Porta Macedonia

I am unconvinced that spending €4.4m on a triumphal arch was the best use of money, which is not overabundant in Skopje. Gruevski was prime minister from 2006 until forced to resign in 2016. In May 2018 he started a two years prison sentence for corruption.

and finally....

This space is available free to any country willing to build itself a pointless arch

A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris) Part 1: Pre 1900

Triumphal Arches - What is and What is Not

This is the third iteration of this post. The original, published 01/04/2014, was ‘Four Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris). The second, 29/06/2018, included newly collected arches, but also omitted Lutyens’ India Gate from the earlier post on the grounds it was a War Memorial, not a Triumphal Arch.

Defining a Triumphal Arch is difficult. Some arches called Triumphal have no associated triumph, and then there are Monumental Gates and War Memorials which can look very similar.

Although retaining the title, I have chosen a new and more inclusive definition for these posts (there are now two of them, this one and post-1900). For the purposes of this blog an ‘Arc de Triomphe’ is an arch with no structural purpose. This definition includes war memorials built in arch form – like the India Gate mentioned above and also Monumental Gates as long as they were built to be symbolic i.e. not city gates built as part of a wall, even if the wall has long gone. Another qualification of inclusion is that I have been there and taken the photograph.

Almost all modern arches owe a debt to the Parisian Arch, because it was (almost) the first modern Arc de Triomphe; but it was not, of course, the original. Like so much in Europe, Triumphal Arches are a Roman idea.

Classical Arches

None of my modern arches are in Paris, so none of my classical arches are in Rome.

In order of construction they are:

Hadrian's Arch, Gerasa, Jordan

Built 129 CE Visited 10th of November 2019

Jordan

There site of Gerasa (modern Jerash) in northern Jordan has been inhabited since prehistory. The city, though, was founded by Alexander the Great who breezed through in 333 BCE, or by one of his successors. The Romans arrived in 63 BCE and Gerasa became part of the Roman Province of Syria. Set in a relatively fertile area, with iron-ore deposits nearby the city could not but thrive. In 106 CE it became part of the Province of Arabia and became even richer thanks to the Emperor Trajan's road building programme. The start of the 2nd century saw much new building and a new grid plan, and then the honour of an imperial visit. Trajan, who had been responsible for much of Gerasa's recent prosperity, died in 117, so it was Hadrian who made the visit in 129, and thus the Triumphal Arch bears his name.

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash/Gerasa

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

Built 165 CE, Visited April 2006

Libya

We visited Libya in 2006, the home of two well preserved/restored Roman arches. The Arch of Marcus Aurelius in Tripoli was built to commemorate the victory of Marcus's adopted brother, Lucius Verus, over the Parthians. It seems a thin excuse for building an arch so far away from the events, but perhaps he felt in need of a monument.

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

Built 203 CE, Visited April 2006

The ruins of Leptis Magna lie 130 km east of Tripoli. Septimius Severus, Rome’s only African emperor, was born here in 145 CE. He became emperor in 193 and ruled until he fell ill attempting to conquer Caledonia, and died in York in 211. He is honoured by an arch in Rome commemorating his victory over the Parthians (it seems Lucius Verus failed to finish them off) and this one in his home town.

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

The Modern Link

Napoleon in a Toga, Bastia

France

After the Romans, triumphal arches went out of fashion until the days of Napoleon who rather fancied himself as a latter day Roman emperor. The wonderfully camp statue below is in Bastia the capital of northern Corsica. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, the capital of southern Corsica – is it possible that Bastia was taking the mickey out of their rival’s favourite son?

Napoleon in a toga, Bastia

Planning the Paris Arc de Triomphe started in 1806 but it was not completed until 1836 by which time some of the shine had come off Napoleon’s triumphs. That did not deter the Parisians, nor indeed many others, as where Paris led the rest followed. St Petersburg has one (1829), as has New York (1892) and Mexico City (1938). London hopped on the bandwagon early, the Wellington Arch in Green Park dates from 1826 - though before I began researching triumphal arches I had never heard of it.

Modern Arches pre-1900

For 20th and 21st Century Arches, see Part 2

So, in order of construction....

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Built 1765 Visited 30th July 2014 and subsequently

United Kingdom

The Napoleonic era may have re-invented Triumphal Arches, but my first example is an outlier. Built 4 years before Napoleon was born, it was a product of the 18th century fascination with everything classical, even when they misunderstood the context.

The Temple Family became rich from sheep farming. In 1683 Sir Richard Temple started building the first Stowe House. His son, who married into more wealth and became Lord Cobham started work on the garden. Over the next few generations as they married into more and more wealth, and acquired more names and more titles, they built one of the finest houses and the finest garden of its type in England.

And a great garden needs a great entrance. The Corinthian Arch was built in 1765 at the end of the long drive.

The Corinthian arch at Stowe, photographed from half way down the drive

Visiting great gardens was popular in the 18th century, but the casual visitor did not enter through the arch, they were diverted via the family’s New Inn. The same is true today, the road swings right to the National Trust car park behind the (not so) New Inn. Once inside, you can approach the arch on foot.

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe

The arch represents a triumph over the ‘little people’ – anybody who had less money than the Temples – which was just about everyone. Arrogant and high handed they kept on spending and in 1848, four generations after they had been the richest family in the country, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (I said they collected names!) eventually spent them into bankruptcy. The rest of the British aristocracy smirked quietly.

Arcul de Triumf, Chişinău

Moldova

Built 1841 Visted 24th June 2018

The modest capital of Moldova has an appropriately modest triumphal arch, 13m high and sporting a clock that would not look out of place on a railway station.

Arcul de Triumf

There were 12 Russo-Turkish Wars, the first 1568-70 and last World War One which ended the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Designed by Luca Zauşkevici the arch commemorates the Russian victory in the 1828-9 version of this fixture. It was built to house a 6.4t bell made from melted down Ottoman cannons originally intended for the cathedral bell tower (the predecessor of the one in this picture), but it would not fit. It strikes the hour with a rather unmusical ‘dunk’.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

Spain

Built 1888 Visited 29th March 2008

A whimsical piece of modernista architecture with Islamic-style brickwork, Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf was designed by Josep Vilaseca and built in 1888 as the entrance to the Barcelona World Fair.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

The arch represents no military triumph, real or imagined, and the sculpture on the front frieze is called Barcelona rep les nacions (Barcelona welcomes the nations). It was a marginal inclusion under the previous criteria, but I felt it represented an altogether healthier expression of national (in this case Catalan) pride than any of the other Arcs de Triomphe.