The Trump administration said Thursday that excavation work will start over the next two weeks on the site where it plans to build a towering, gilded arch, a project critics say would disrupt historic sightlines in Washington, D.C.

“This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on the social media platform X, “befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.”

The planned 250-foot-tall (76-meter) memorial arch will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. A lawsuit is challenging the plans for the arch.

Jesse Bedayn, The Associated Press