Maybe It’s Time to Close the Kennedy Center for Good

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Maybe It’s Time to Close the Kennedy Center for Good

Washington isn’t a cultural hub, the building is ugly, and its leaders don’t much care about the arts.

By Tom Foley, WSJ

Feb. 6, 2026

President Trump says he plans to close the Kennedy Center for renovations. A better idea might be to shutter it permanently.

The origins of the institution aren’t what most think. The notion of a national cultural center was raised during the Depression, mostly to create jobs. It regained steam in the 1950s, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill to create the center in 1958. Eisenhower wasn’t known for his interest in the arts, but there was a Cold War purpose: a response to Soviet propaganda-based programs such as the Bolshoi Ballet. Although Congress in 1964 named it after President John F. Kennedy, the center wasn’t his idea. It opened in 1971.

The idea of a national cultural center isn’t a bad one. But the Kennedy Center has suffered from conditions that have kept it inferior to its private big-city peers. The first is that it’s located in Washington, a medium-size town with few wealthy patrons. Most of the important people in the District of Columbia are temporary residents. They go there to serve in or around government. Their real homes and civic pride are somewhere else.

Washington isn’t a cultural center the way New York, Nashville and Los Angeles are. It has no cultural infrastructure to support artists and art-based institutions: no Juilliard, no Grand Ole Opry, no University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Washington doesn’t even have a bohemian or hip section of town where artists prefer to hang out. Given scant home-based talent and difficulty recruiting the best talent to Washington, the programming at the Kennedy Center hasn’t been competitive with what large-city performing arts institutions offer.

The building is another problem. People try to be nice about it, but let’s face it, it’s cold, flinty and cheap looking. It lacks grace and grandness. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, it suffers from the out-of-date look of similar 1960s architecture. It’s a bunch of rectangular boxes stacked on top of each other. Too many straight lines and flat surfaces. It’s jammed into a tight space along the Potomac as if it were a low-budget real-estate development without enough money for land worthy of the building.

The exterior and interior are bland. The building has no elegant approach. Despite its exterior Carrara marble surfaces, the building looks lightweight and poorly made. The pillars surrounding the building don’t fit it. The interior is cavernous with no comfortable, welcoming spaces (including the boardroom). Even the President’s Box feels as though the National Park Service manages it, which it once did.

The way the center’s leadership is chosen is a another problem. The board (of which I was a member, appointed by President George W. Bush) is a mix of political donors, former politicians, high-level bureaucrats and Washington social aspirants. Appointed board members are motivated not by an interest in the performing arts but by the honor and prestige of being on the board and, in a town where officeholders run the show, the value of it as a social calling card for non-officeholders.

When I was on the board, only one or two members knew much about the performing arts. The boards of Lincoln Center in New York City and other private cultural institutions are packed with patrons engaged in the arts who have expertise and extensive relationships in the cultural world to help them guide the institutions. There is none of that at the Kennedy Center.

Some things are worth saving. Washington needs a hall that can host local and visiting performers. The Kennedy Center Honors is a worthy program, with public recognition of artistic achievements. But the program has its own structure, which can easily be continued without the Kennedy Center’s involvement.

The underlying problem may be that the world has moved on from a time when government-sponsored institutions were often better than similar private-sector ones. The U.S. Postal Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Public Broadcasting Service were once important and excellent institutions. But they succumbed to maturity costs, politics, bureaucracy, mission drift and underfunding. Meanwhile, competitive private-sector players emerged to fill the need.

If there is enough private support in Washington, which is doubtful, the Kennedy Center could become a privately funded model similar to its peers around the country. Otherwise, it may be best to close it down.

Mr. Foley is chairman of the NTC Group, a private-equity firm. He served as ambassador to Ireland (2006-09) and as a Kennedy Center trustee (2002-06). He was the Republican nominee for governor of Connecticut in 2010 and 2014.