Donald Trump has been ridiculed over his plans for a $400m White House ballroom dripping in gold, with architects criticising the “faux windows”, lack of doors from the south portico and stairs that go nowhere.
The US National Capital Planning Commission, which is preparing to vote on the plans, has reportedly received a deluge of negative public comments, with critics attacking the ballroom as “ugly” and “hideous“.
The project came under fresh scrutiny after three architects criticised it in a report from The New York Times on Sunday, claiming the plans include columns that will block natural light, a lack of symmetry and a ceiling so high it will give the White House a lopsided appearance.
The US President on Sunday night fired back, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that “the military is building a massive complex under the ballroom”, which he said would function like “a shed”.
Trump responded to the criticism by presenting new renderings of the project, which is set to move forward this week, in which the staircase had been removed, and said “we have no fake windows”.
He spent five minutes showcasing the drawings, despite having said “I’m so busy that I don’t have time to do this … I’m fighting wars and other things… But this is very important, because this is going to be with us for a long time, and it’s going to be, I think it will be the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world”.
Architects have said that the ballroom will disrupt the symmetry of the historic property (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty)Trump explained: “The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under, the military [complex] including [protection] from drones and including from any other thing. The glass on the windows is extremely thick – it’s high-grade bulletproof glass.”
When reporters pressed him on whether he was considering boots on the ground in Iran, he linked it back to the ballroom, saying: “I would say just like we are ahead of schedule on the ballroom – in a much bigger way we’re ahead of schedule with Iran.”
The White House ballroom has been a key project for Trump throughout his second term, to which he has repeatedly redirected attention when controversies have been swirling around him, namely the Epstein files.
Reports claim the supersized, 8,270 sq metre expansion will make the White House look lopsided (Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty)Mark Shanahan, associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, said: “It’s classic Trump to flood the arena, just to stick as many stories as possible out there to take away from the bad news that is going on around him.
“We’re in day 32 of a war that was supposed to be over in a weekend, Epstein is going nowhere, the elections are looming, petrol prices in America have just hit $4 a gallon, inflation is going to start going up and prices in the supermarket are increasing.
“Yet, rather than address any of these difficult issues head-on, Trump flies back from Mar-a-Lago and shows off pictures of his new ballroom, which at the moment is just a hole in the ground.”
The ballroom, which will sit atop a ‘military complex’, will replace the recently demolished two-storey East Wing (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)However, Shanahan said he didn’t think that the ballroom was purely a distraction. “It plays into the other side of him, which is wanting to leave a legacy, and the real estate developer developing real estate on the nation’s most historic building will be what he sees as the most appropriate legacy for himself.”
It is also clearly something he does not appreciate criticism over.
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt attacked The New York Times article and dismissed the opinions of the three experts who contributed to the story.
Work on the East Wing of the White House began in October and is moving ahead fast (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)She wrote on X: “The New York Times had three random people who have ‘studied fine arts,’ ‘long written about urban planning,’ and never built anything to write an article criticizing the new White House ballroom.”
It appeared she was referencing two of the authors – Larry Buchanan, who has studied fine arts, and Emily Badger, who writes about urban planning – but did not mention Junho Lee, who is a trained architect, according to The New York Times.
“President Trump and his lead architect have built world-class buildings around the world, and they are ensuring the People’s House finally has a beautiful ballroom that’s been needed for decades — at no expense to the taxpayer,” she added.
When Trump first announced plans for the ballroom, he promised it wouldn’t ‘interfere with the current building'(Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty)But the spat has only heaped more scrutiny on the project, and prompted criticism from political figures across the spectrum.
Responding to a video of Trump showing the renderings, Congressman Greg Cesar posted on X: “You get: more expensive gas prices, groceries, rent, health care, and utilities. Trump gets: $4 billion in personal profit, a $400 million palace in the sky, and a $300 million golden ballroom with ‘the best, most beautiful’ corinthian columns.”
The interior view of the proposed new ballroom (Photo: The White House)Former Congresswoman and Maga acolyte Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote: “Americans don’t give a damn about Trump building a WH [White House] ballroom or renovating the Kennedy Center as they are paying $4+ dollars per gallon for gas and nearly $6 for diesel because of another pointless foreign war. Americans are suffering.”
Questions remain over funding for the project.
Trump has frequently pointed out that American taxpayer money is not being used to pay for the ballroom, but instead his own money and private donations from companies such as Amazon, Google and Palantir.
Observers have criticised a lack of oversight for the dramatic changes planned at the famous building (Image: @realDonaldTrump/ Truth Social)Professor Shanahan said: “These companies are getting the best presidency that money can buy.”
But he asserted that their donations to Trump do not necessarily secure his support: “The one thing that the likes of Jeff Bezos haven’t really factored in is how mercurial Trump is.
“He may happily take their money. They may think that they have his ear, and the door is always open to them, and then he goes off and does something completely different anyway.”
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