Timepieces: Dorset’s Elliot Brown Watches
1 May 2026Refreshing an icon
T he US president has announced that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington DC is to be repaired and repainted.
Speaking on a video posted on the White House website, he said he has commissioned a contractor to scrub and seal the existing granite of the iconic site, which first opened in the early 1920s. He added that the interior of the pond would be given a lining in a bright “American flag” shade of blue.
“It was filthy, dirty and it leaked like a sieve for many years,” said the president. “And they had bids to fix it. They were going to take the stone out, which was granite – very expensive, very thick – and replace it with stone, and it was going to cost $300m, and it was going to take maybe more than three years.”
He added that he had hired a firm, with whom he had previously worked on swimming pool projects, to complete the job.
“Now we have a nice, clean surface on which we're putting an industrial-grade swimming pool topping. It'll last for 40 or 50 years. It's a story in business. For much less money, it will look far more beautiful than it did in 1922 when they built it.”
While never used for swimming, the Reflecting Pool has undergone considerable maintenance over the decades, including a major overhaul completed in 2012 under the Obama administration.
Maintenance has been complicated by the marshy soil on which the memorial is built, which has contributed to sinkage of around 12 inches over the past century as well as extensive leaks.
Conservationists have however questioned how replacing the grey granite lining with a brighter blue could affect the visitor experience.
Charles Birnbaum, who leads the Cultural Landscape Foundation non-profit organisation, told the Washington Post: “A blue-tinted basin risks reading more like a large lap pool than the solemn and hallowed visual and spatial connection between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.”
While major projects on Washington’s National Mall would generally expect to undergo a review process involving federal panels, public consultation and potentially congressional authorisation, none of that appears to have occurred with this work.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was designed by Henry Bacon, and was constructed in 1922 and 1923, following the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.