"Bonkers" - what other architects think about the design of Trump's White House ballroom (2xUpdated)

[babylonsister]

"Bonkers" - what other architects think about the design of Trump's White House ballroom (2xUpdated)
by davidkc
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 9:44:27a EDT

McCrery's former mentor calls his WH ballroom design "bonkers"; an architecture newsletter says it "violates the very standards of beauty and proportion"

snip//

The broader architecture community does not have much nice to say about McCrery’s White House ballroom design — or about how he was chosen. Punch List notes that the American Institute of Architects sent a letter to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House in which it raised alarms about several aspects of the ballroom plan.

Though it is couched in diplomatic language, the letter calls out the administration for choosing McCrery without an open public process and raises questions about what it calls the design’s “scale and balance”: “We urge careful consideration of adjustments that would align the proposed additions more closely with the White House’s historic character.”

McCrery’s former mentor, famed architect Peter Eisenman, was less diplomatic.

(Eisenman) called McCrery’s ballroom design “bonkers” before adding, “putting a portico at the end of a long facade and not in the center is what one might say is untutored.”

Ouch.

The author of the Punch List piece, Christopher Hawthorne, agrees with the criticism:

I don’t disagree with the growing consensus that the ballroom design, a big-footed architectural presence stomping toward the southern edge of the White House grounds, violates the very standards of beauty and proportion that McCrery loves to rhapsodize about in interviews, to say nothing of the protocols long in place to guide changes to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I’m also of course reminded of the heavily gilded architecture that Viktor Orbán’s autocratic government coaxed from the typically more subtle Sou Fujimoto in Budapest...

Hawthorne goes on to say — even more pointedly — that what McCrery’s ballroom design suggests is “not so much a bloated classicism or an effort to turn Washington into Mar-a-Lago north, although it is both of those things, as a blueprint for making concrete the notion that the White House has turned in some fundamental sense into a retail outlet, a place where access and influence are nakedly bought and sold.”

more...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/22/2349807/-Bonkers-what-other-architects-think-about-the-design-of-Trump-s-ballroom?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

[sop]

1. Its "scale and balance" are the most jarring, the monstrosity dwarfs the main residence.

[Bettie]

10. Don't worry, he'll tear down the main residence

and build some kind of golden palace for himself.

Because that's what he is, a monster who destroys everything he touches.

[Justice matters.]

25. And the mad pedofelon has free* healtcare...

*free for him, not for US.

[democrank]

2. Mar-a-Lago North.....gold and grift

A gargantuan golden toilet will sit where cherished history once was.

[Vinca]

3. Trump will look at that and say, "Not enough gold."

I know this is just a building, but I think it's got me more upset than anything else the orange asshole has done. Maybe it's the symbolism of tearing down our democracy and eradicating our history. Now I'm wondering if he'll stop his tearing down with the East Wing or keep on going. Mar-a-Grifto north.

[AverageOldGuy]

4. Is there an elevated dias at one end?

I suspect there is to make a place for Trump’s throne.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Lots of glass to harden.

[bronxiteforever]

6. Disgusting. George Washington himself

would hang the brothel owner who built this.

[NoMoreRepugs]

7. Bet the Shitstain is planning on renting it out for weddings and such.

[3catwoman3]

26. I forsee right wing fundie dads holding their creepy...

...purity balls for their pubescent daughters there. Ick, ick, ick!

Or the return of cotillions?

[Joinfortmill]

8. Remove Him.

[MLWR]

9. This entire fiasco is utterly ridiculous.

I, for one, did not vote for anyone to the office of POTUS so s/he could "dance the night away." I want my POTUS to spend his/her four years WORKING FOR THE GOOD OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, not having parties for rich people and foreign billionaires. I am appalled at what's going on.

[Totally Tunsie]

13. ...especially the way he "dances"!

[Auggie]

11. Bonkers? No, it's Trump's big F.U. to the democratic process.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Idiots build idiotic things

I wonder if all the MAGAts like it? And those conservative Republicans, the real ones, how can they support the destruction, the idiotic uselessness of the planned ballroom?

Real conservatives like tradition and historical details. The filthy-rich can always build another useless ballroom, castle or palace. But they can never build another historical White House.

It will all end up looking like a cheap whore house, like everything pedo Trump builds. Just another overpriced useless bauble for the flilthy-rich to play with while the peasant starve.

[KS Toronado]

21. Middle of the road Rs around here are not happy with it

And the MAGAts are OK with everything he does.

[Sneederbunk]

14. The next Democratic president can tear it down.

[Linda ladeewolf]

15. Trump doesn't think he's ever going to leave the White House .

This ball room is just like him. Big and ugly.

[Johnny2X2X]

16. Trump sign

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2025, 11:08 AM - Edit history (1)

I am not even kidding when I say we're going to get a giant golden Trump sign in 40 foot letters on the roof of the White House.

He wants to build a giant golden Trump statue of himself in DC.

Frankly, I hope it all happens, I hope we get a half $billion ballroom, a 50 foot glowing gold Trump sign on the roof of the White House, and the largest free standing statue in the World of Trump in downtown DC. America deserves to have these reminders for 100 years that we can lose it all in a flash because people hate.

[durablend]

22. That or painted on the roof so planes can see it flying over

[haele]

17. Lot of cut and paste clutter in the picture.

Almost like the architect went with a couple concepts and let the toddler in Chief pick what he wanted, and is still trying to figure out how to make all the choices work.
Betcha there's a dias or a marble water feature somewhere in that clutter that's being hidden by the tables just so the architect can cling to some semblance of professionalism.
As a side, they should have gone straight up Caligula, and included a gilded "Wine Tree" fountain, "relaxing" level, and marble stalls along the side for the farmyard animals the Toddler in Chief decides will be the next Speaker of the House and various committee heads.

[KS Toronado]

18. Referring to the East Wing yesterday dumpie said .....

"the decision to tear down the entire structure was made after tremendous amount of
study with some of the best architects in the world."

Wish one of the reporters had enough backbone to ask "Which architects?"
More lies coming out of his mouth and journalists let him slide telling them.

[LunaSea]

19. Keeping up with his master..

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220742884

[eppur_se_muova]

20. It's a factory feedlot for rich donors. Pack 'em in and harvest 'em, don't sweat the niceties.

Don't call it bribery, call it extortion. If you don't pay, your rivals get all your Federal contracts that were just cancelled.

[Grins]

23. How do you award a $200 million contract without competitive bidding?

More - How do you make a bid without an RFP stating the bid requirements.
Without Showing the plans?

This is bidding in the dark - so why would you bid??
The contract’s change orders will be overwhelming.

Is this the reason the cost estimate has jumped 50% to $300 million in a week?*

It’s only just begun…

* Maybe the contractor bumped the numbers up now knowing Trump will eventually try to screw them over.

[BradBo]

24. Looks like the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.