President Trump has proposed a $200 million state ballroom off the White House’s East Wing, the newest addition to his growing list of inane design priorities for the presidential headquarters, which includes ornate gilded décor in the Oval Office, a propagandist painting of his assassination attempt, and a Mar-a-Lago-inspired pave-over of the historic Rose Garden.
Slated to begin in September, the construction project will add what a White House press release issued on July 31 calls a “much-needed and exquisite” 90,000-square-foot (27,432-square-meter) ballroom that can seat up to 650 people, more than triple the current 200-person seating capacity of the East Room. The renovation, which will involve relocating offices including those belonging to the First Lady and the military, will be financed by Trump and unidentified “patriot donors,” according to the announcement.
Trump hired architect and National Civic Art Society (NCAS) Co-founder James McCrery to spearhead the ballroom’s design. During his first term, he appointed McCrery to the United States Commission of Fine Arts.
The NCAS is a conservative Washington, DC-based nonprofit that advocates “to end the hegemony of Modernism in federal architecture by advancing the classical and humanistic tradition.” The organization is responsible for partially writing Trump’s 2020 executive order recommending that federal buildings be constructed in the so-called “classical” (referring to Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco) and traditional styles. The order was echoed in a memorandum issued by Trump earlier this year that drew widespread criticism.
Evocative of the NCAS’s architectural renderings for the renovation of New York City’s Penn Station, the project envisions a ballroom of lavish grandeur and scale, consisting of high-arched windows, massive chandeliers, fluted columns, and ceilings with symmetrical crown moldings.
Many social media users responded to the White House’s announcement by drawing comparisons between Trump and the last French monarchs, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, whose reign is infamous for lavish personal expenditures and royal extravagance at Versailles amid food scarcity, fueling the masses to revolt. (Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago beach club and New York City apartment bear several architectural similarities to the grandiose Parisian palace.) Some also criticized the project by pointing out the administration’s recent gutting of expanded healthcare coverage and soaring grocery costs being escalated by Trump’s trade war, which he finalized this week.
