Trump Bulldozing the White House: A Demolition of the Past in America’s Kitsch New Palace
Image Credit: Benjamin Henry Latrobe via Wikimedia Commons
Nicknamed the ‘People's House’, the White House has long represented democratic values. Its architecture avoids imperial grandeur, reflecting the nation’s democratic tradition and presidential modesty in its sturdy neoclassical pillars. The current construction on parts of the residence’s transformation, however, reflects the many other transformations during the Trump administration. Of the many adjectives that can be used to describe Donald Trump - modest is not one of them. In late October, plans to obliterate the East Wing of the White House to make space for a ballroom were executed.
The project surfaced as images of demolition circulated the internet. The images are not only shocking - they revoke Trump's claims in June of this year, that none of the White House’s existing infrastructure would be destroyed by the construction. Initially announced at a cost of 200 million dollars, the ballroom is estimated to cost up to 300 million dollars. Who is this funded by? According to Trump, by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, yours truly".
‘Yours truly’ is not the first president to have made changes to the White House buildings. Andrew Jackson, for one, added running water to the building’s infrastructure; Trump seems to argue that this 8,360 square meter gilded ballroom is equally essential. Other presidents have, of course, made bigger changes to the building. Yet, this somehow feels different, and the reaction to these images call to question what such an architectural transformation signifies to the American public.
The East Wing itself has never been especially elaborate. It was expanded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942. It later on became home to the Office of the First Lady, formalising her role in the White House.
The ballroom is to be heavily inspired by French King Louis XIV and the palace of Versailles, already in line with the ‘Trump Aesthetic’. Apparently likened to his Florida estate’s existing ballroom in Mar-a-Lago, there is a clear preference for gilded, pretend-vintage French interiors. To Trump, it seems to emulate a sense of aristocracy and historic importance, when in reality, it doesn’t emulate anything other than kitsch. The glaring gold lining and cream walls in pictures of his Mar-a-Lago estate are visions of what is to come - a lifeless space telling the American public that if they have no bread, they should simply eat cake. The shock reaction to the images goes beyond a change in architecture; it is the knowledge of what is to come.
If buildings reflect society, what does this shift to gilded opulence represent to the American public, battling economic uncertainty?
That is why this radical transformation has left many Americans wondering what this new America really stands for. Presidential buildings and architecture not only illustrate the kind of government that houses them, they also underline the nature and relationship between the government and the people. Trump’s message? That the White House is a palace and he is its king.
The images of bare brick and rubble incite feelings that go beyond the architecture, beyond erasure of the past, the demolition is a permanent reminder of who sits in the oval office. Trump’s vanity project is not a diplomatic decision, but an attempt to transform a chair into a golden throne.