Eight Preservation and Design Groups Sue to Block Kennedy Center’s Planned Two-Year Closure
A coalition of eight preservation and design organizations has filed suit in federal court seeking to halt plans to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., for two years, arguing that the Trump administration and the Kennedy Center’s leadership are moving forward without required historic preservation and environmental review.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, follows a vote by the Kennedy Center’s board last week approving a two-year shutdown beginning after the institution’s July 4 celebrations tied to the United States’ 250th anniversary. The scope of the renovation has not been fully disclosed, but President Donald Trump said in February that the Kennedy Center is “tired, broken, and dilapidated.”
In the complaint, the plaintiffs describe the Kennedy Center as “a defining landmark within the monumental core of the Nation’s capital,” arguing that its modernist architecture and civic role as a major performing arts venue constitute “an irreplaceable legacy of history, architecture, and civic purpose.” That legacy, the suit contends, is now threatened by a rapid timeline and the possibility of extensive structural intervention.
The plaintiffs ask the court to intervene before the closure and any renovation proceeds, seeking a pause until the Kennedy Center board submits the project to review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and until the process required under the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act is completed. The suit also calls for congressional approval for any renovations.
According to the complaint, the planned work could involve “major structural work — up to and including demolition and reconstruction.” It further alleges that preliminary construction has already begun, describing the risk of harm as imminent.
The plaintiffs are the DC Preservation League, the National Trust for the Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, Docomomo, the Society of Architectural Historians, the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation.
The initial list of defendants extends beyond the Kennedy Center board and Trump, who serves as chair of the board, to include the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Capital Planning Commission, and the Department of the Interior and its secretary, Douglas J. Burgum. The Trump administration has not commented on the lawsuit.
The Kennedy Center, renamed in 1964 as a “living memorial” to President John F. Kennedy, has been a focus of Trump’s attention since the start of his second administration. The suit notes that Trump dismissed 18 board members and installed a new board that elected him chair. It also points to efforts to add Trump’s name to the institution’s official title.
In addition to challenging the renovation timeline and process, the complaint argues that physical changes have already been pursued without the federal review it says is required. It cites Trump’s addition of his name to the building’s façade and an order to paint the Kennedy Center’s iconic gold columns white, describing these actions as part of “a deliberate pattern of advancing physical changes.”
The suit contends that federal agencies have a “nondiscretionary duty” to deny permits, licenses, and approvals unless and until a consultation process is completed with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League, told The Washington Post that the Kennedy Center “is not a personal project of any president,” describing it as a national cultural monument that should be subject to transparency, expert review, and public participation before any fundamental alterations move forward.
The case now places the future of one of the nation’s most visible cultural institutions at the intersection of architecture, federal oversight, and politics — with the question of what, exactly, will be changed at the Kennedy Center still unresolved.
