The White House was once the Executive Mansion, and before that, the President’s House. Before the two-story East Wing, and before former President Thomas Jefferson directed the addition of east and west colonnades, the central residence stood alone.
That is to say, the addition of a ballroom is hardly the first renovation to the White House campus. More importantly: It’s a good one.
President Donald Trump broke ground Monday on his White House Ballroom. The East Wing facade came tumbling down in spectacular fashion, a necessary step in realizing the 90,000-square-foot ballroom announced July 31 by the Trump administration.
The project has been met with complaints and skepticism since the announcement.
“It’s too expensive.”
Fret not. President Trump and other donors have “generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million dollar structure,” the White House clarified. “The United States Secret Service will provide the necessary security enhancements and modifications.” (RELATED: Leftists Completely Losing Their Minds Over Trump’s White House Ballroom Construction)
Schumer: Implies the $200M White House ballroom is government waste.
Leavitt: It’s funded entirely by Trump and private donors.
Try again, Chuck 🤡 pic.twitter.com/1vMBmVHdh4
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 31, 2025
A modest price tag, compared to the estimated cost of the Federal Reserve’s ongoing renovations to two buildings — $2.5 billion, up from a $1.9 billion proposal.
Moreover, forward-looking civilizations invest in impressive and beautiful architecture.
An Egyptian living in 100 B.C. might have gazed up at the Pyramids of Giza and marveled at the thousands of years standing between himself and their construction, just as tourists do today.
China recently debuted the Huajiang Canyon Bridge. It is the world’s highest bridge, soaring 2,050 feet above the river and gorge below, and spanning 4,600 feet across, according to NBC News.
Tian Hongrui, a technician for the bridge, said he felt “proud to have left a mark,” according to the outlet.
We do great things to do them. And to leave a mark.
“It’s an offense to historical preservation.”
The East Wing building is less than a century old.
A small East Wing was built in 1902 at the behest of former President Theodore Roosevelt. The two-story East Wing we know today was constructed in 1942 “primarily to cover the construction of an underground bunker, now the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC),” according to the White House Museum.
The PEOC had to be built quickly, expertly, and covertly. Officials feared an aerial attack on Washington, D.C. would decimate the country’s leadership, including former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“No public acknowledgment was made of there being a bomb shelter under construction, only the East Wing,” according to the White House Historical Association.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter placed her personal office in the East Wing in 1977, formally designating the space the “Office of the First Lady.”
Roosevelt’s successor, former President Harry Truman, moved into a White House in disrepair. Truman joked that the “damned place” was “haunted,” according to the White House Historical Association. He complained of drafts, popping floors, and creaking noises.
Engineers “confirmed that the White House was structurally weak and in danger of collapse” in 1948, the White House Historical Association notes. “Burned to the exterior walls in 1814, further compromised by the successive additions of indoor plumbing, gas lighting, electric wiring, heating ducts, and major modifications in 1902 and 1927, some said the White House was standing only from the force of habit.“
The White House would undergo more than three years of “complete reconstruction within its original exterior walls,” with workmen tearing out everything inside those stone walls.
“It’s ugly.”
Taste is taste. I’ll offer my personal observations.
The latest ballroom renderings, released Sept. 25 by CBS, show a stately exterior. Classical motifs, including a pediment and corinthian columns, visually tie the ballroom to the West Wing and the central residence.
The interior is, well, Trump-y. It’s gold plated and opulent and chandelier-ed.
And it’s huge.
The ballroom will total about 90,000 square feet, according to the White House, with a seated capacity of 650 people. Total capacity will change based on the event type, the Daily Caller was told by a source inside the White House.
Compare the ballroom to the Barack Obama Presidential Center under construction in Chicago, as Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese did Tuesday.
“He needs help,” Trump told the Caller. “It’s not too pretty. No, but it’s closed, it’s stopped. They ran out of money.”
“They’re stuck,” Trump added. “And he wanted only women and DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] to build it. That’s what he got.”
The project broke ground in 2021. It is an extraordinarily ugly building, which is probably a fitting commemoration. (RELATED: Obama Foundation Targets Right-Wing Populist Governments, US Allies Hungary And Poland)
Today, we’re excited to unveil the words that will appear on the exterior of the Obama Presidential Center Museum—a place to learn from history that will also offer future leaders inspiration and tools to write chapters of their own.
Watch the video below to see for yourself: pic.twitter.com/gWCpCGIf31
— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) March 7, 2021
The Obama Foundation released a rendering of the museum/library/“lively community hub”/“economic anchor”/“beacon of democracy in 2018. The building is towering, asymmetrical, brutish. It features large white text, lifted from an Obama speech, scrawled over two portions of the exterior: “You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention … The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We” … Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
Lazy and hideous. Architects couldn’t manage to fit the text to the building without interrupting individual words, such that the quote reads:
“You are America. Unconstrain
ed by habit and convention
Unencumbered by what is rea
dy to seize what ought to”
A building should speak for itself. The Barack Obama Presidential Center says to visitors, ‘I hate you. I hate myself. I hate the world.’ As does all brutalist architecture.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
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