WASHINGTON -- A Washington federal judge blocked the Kennedy Center board from closing the decades-old performing arts venue and ordered President Donald Trump's name to be removed from the building.

The board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may not, for now, continue with its plans to shutter the center for two years, as it voted to do in March, Judge Christopher "Casey" Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held Friday.

The judge, an Obama appointee, also barred the center from displaying any signage on the building indicating that it "is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy."

Cooper ordered it to remove the current lettering referring to the building as the "The Donald J. Trump And John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts" within 14 days. The Kennedy Center also may not distribute any official materials with Trump's or other names, the judge held.

The decision is a setback to Trump's efforts to reshape Washington's historic landmarks aesthetically. Other legal challenges also target the president's efforts to construct a new ballroom on the site of the White House's demolished East Wing, paint the granite exterior of the 19th-century Eisenhower Executive Office Building, change the color of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and build a 250-foot triumphal arch.

"Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of," Trump posted Friday on Truth Social.

He added that he would work with Congress to transfer the Kennedy Center to its control, "giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management."

"Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into "NEVER NEVER LAND," Trump wrote. "There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I but, that's OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country."

Cooper explained that the board relied "on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information" when it decided to close the center for two years for renovations. And federal law "makes crystal clear" that the center is meant to be named for Kennedy, the judge said.

The judge clarified that his decision doesn't prevent the center from continuing with needed repairs, nor does it prevent the board from deciding later to close the center "should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion."