Last week, the White House confirmed the East Wing was being demolished to make way for U.S. President Donald Trump’s new 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
This week, the plans are showing glaring errors.
The project marks one of the most significant structural changes to the White House in decades.
The White House’s plans for a new $300 million ballroom are showing glaring errors
Highlights
- The White House East Wing demolition for Trump's new 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom revealed glaring design errors in official plans and models.
- There are design flaws like staircases leading into walls and windows facing each other in the ballroom plan.
- The expansion is criticized for lacking federal oversight and potentially undermining the White House's democratic symbolism.
Image credits: Demetrius Freeman/Getty Images
The White House has received widespread criticism for the changes being made, despite Trump’s initial promise that construction wouldn’t “interfere with the current building.”
Observers have since spotted several glaring design errors in the official model.
The miniature version of the East Wing addition, unveiled last week, revealed a staircase that leads directly into a wall and a pair of windows that face each other, The New York Times reported.
The expansion is intended to replace the East Wing and create what Trump has called “the most beautiful ballroom in the world.”
The New York Times reported that the ballroom plans show inconsistent details, including differences in the number of windows, columns, and staircases between designs released in July and those Trump displayed this month.
Some diagrams show two turning staircases leading from the South Lawn, while others show a single straight staircase with no landing point.
Image credits: Eric Lee/Getty Images
Demolition of the existing East Wing began last Monday, and satellite images now also show visible damage to the White House grounds.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on air, “To take literally a wrecking ball to the White House … It’s grotesque, just grotesque! It’s not yours! You rent it from the American people for four years.”
Archaeologist Matthew Vincent, who has studied the recovery of looted artifacts by Islamist extremists, said, “The first reaction I had was, what the f**k? It’s not OK. The White House doesn’t belong to Donald Trump—it’s a federal building, a taxpayer building, belonging to the American people,” he told The Daily Beast.
“This is being done without any real oversight or respect for history.”
Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett also joked about the construction in a TikTok video called ‘The D.C. Hillbillies: Orange Edition,’ a parody of the ’60s TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.
The video, set to the background song ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett’ showed the East Wing being torn down from different angles.
“Families can't afford groceries but sure, let’s build a ballroom,” Crockett wrote in the caption.
White House officials insist that the renovation is legal and part of modernization efforts.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump, arguing he is not the first president to remodel the White House.
Trump did not follow the usual review process that involves the National Capital Planning Commission, according to a report
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Communications Director Steven Cheung dismissed criticism online, writing, “Construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House.”
“Losers who are quick to criticize need to stop their pearl clutching and understand the building needs to be modernized. Otherwise you’re just living in the past.”
Despite those assurances, Trump has not followed the usual review process that involves the National Capital Planning Commission and other federal oversight bodies, The New York Times reported.
The project’s cost has already risen to $300 million, up from the initial $200 million estimate.
The administration has also given different estimations of how many people the ballroom can hold, varying between 650, 999, and 1,350 guests.
Image credits: Salwan Georges/Getty Images
The completion date is tentatively set for 2029, well beyond the end of his current term.
Edward Lengel, former chief historian of the White House Historical Association, told NPR the addition undermines the building’s democratic symbolism.
“My concern is that it really transitions the whole thing into a presidential palace. That in some ways contradicts the original concept of the White House that the founders intended. [The building] is supposed to represent … a democratic symbol in a common democratic community,” he said.
Trump previously referred to himself as ‘The Builder President’
Image credits: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Trump, a former real estate agent, has previously referred to himself as “The Builder President.”
In 1980, he began demolishing the old Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to make way for his Trump Tower.
He had promised to preserve the limestone friezes in the old building, but destroyed them regardless.
In 1990, during a conversation with Vanity Fair journalist Marie Brenner, Trump asked, “What do you think? Do you think blowing up the sculptures has hurt me?”
She answered with a yes.
“Who cares?” he responded.