Architects sounded the alarm about Donald Trump’s ballroom plans in a lengthy piece published by the New York Times Sunday. Thomas Gallas, architect and former member of the planning commission, told the news outlet, “The timeline never made any sense to me.” The White House previously stated the project will be finished before Trump leaves office.
The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) will vote Thursday to approve the final plans for the new addition to the White House. The rushed process — renovations to the White House or the construction of new monuments in D.C. can typically take months or even years — will likely result in a lackluster structure, the group of architects also said.
The Times’ Junho Lee, Larry Buchanan and Emily Badger, who have backgrounds in architecture, urban planning and the arts, wrote, “The hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades. And the ballroom will be worse off for it, architects warn.”
They also noted the planning committee was not allowed to weigh in on the concept design, though Rodney Mims Cook Jr., who was appointed by the president as chair of the arts panel, and Will Scharf, chair of the planning comittee and White House staff secretary, both insisted otherwise.
“If not for President Trump, his desire to move quickly, and his raising the money to fund this, a project like this could languish for years with no decision or action,” Scharf also said. “And we could still be debating it at N.C.P.C. meetings 20 years from now.”
But critics insist more time should be given to evaluating the project, especially since it will make the East Wing of the White House 60% larger than the West Wing, thus impacting the experience of seeing the structure.
“The ballroom is literally an imposition between two branches of our government,” said architect David Scott Parker, who sits on the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Read the full report at The New York Times.
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