A portion of the East Wing of the White House has been demolished to build President Donald Trump’s ballroom. The demolition on the historic national building began on Monday, October 20, despite previous claims from the president saying that the addition wouldn’t impact the building structure.
The Washington Post reported that a backhoe ripped through the structure of the East Wing on Monday to make way for an incoming 90,000-square-foot ballroom that will almost double the size of the main building and its East and West wings. It is expected to accommodate 650 people, which more than triples the current 200-person capacity.
Constructed in 1902, the last renovation to the East Wing included the addition of a second floor in 1942. It has traditionally been used by the First Lady and her team, as well as a reception area for social events. The White House has served as the residence for every sitting US President since John Adams when the capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington, DC in 1800. Trump’s plans, laid out earlier this year in July, mark some of the most significant changes made to “the People’s House” in the last century.
Trump announced news of the construction in a post on his Truth Social account on Monday, writing, “the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete! For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc.”
The president had previously suggested that the change would not impact the structure of the White House during an executive order signing in July. “It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said.
There have reportedly been efforts to preserve objects of historical value over the last several weeks, prior to the demolition. The National Park Service maintains the White House grounds and, in 2014, outlined in 56-page document its intentions to work with presidential administrations, secret service, and other government agencies “to ensure both the preservation and use of one of the most recognized houses in the world.”
ARTnews reached out to National Park Service for comment, but the agency did not respond by the time of publication.
The $250 million addition, Trump says in his post, comes “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer! The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
While this is arguably the most substantial change Trump has made to the White House grounds, it is hardly the first. Trump has also undertaken the addition of the new National Garden of Heroes, funded by federal grants that were distributed to arts and cultural groups across the US and later canceled by the Trump administration.
The remodeling efforts are part of Trump’s larger “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again” initiative, which seeks to reinstate a policy that favors “classical” over modernist styles for government buildings.
Reinhold Martin, an architecture historian and Columbia University Professor, called Trump’s need to control civic architecture “a dog whistle for white nationalists”.
“Architecture speaks silently,” Martin told TPM. “The attempt to revive classical architecture under current political conditions is an attempt that speaks silently about dismantling not just the ideas that were expressed in 2020, but the institutions of civil rights. And so it speaks silently the language of white nationalism. And that is well known, but it’s very difficult to literally demonstrate or prove. That’s why it’s so effective, because it’s easily deniable.”
