East Wing of White House torn down as Trump clears space for his ballroom

Geoff Bennett:

The entire East Wing of the White House has been demolished, part of President Trump's plan to build a new White House ballroom.

The demolition, which began this week without prior public notice, has drawn sharp criticism from preservationists and historians. In a statement, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called for the work to stop, saying, it's concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House.

President Trump had previously insisted the project would not affect the East Wing, which for decades housed the first ladies' offices.

Joining us now to discuss the renovation is Priya Jain, chair of the Heritage Preservation Committee at the Society of Architectural Historians and a professor at Texas A&M University.

Thanks for being with us.

Priya Jain, Society of Architectural Historians: Thank you for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

One would expect the White House, given its historic importance, its national symbolism, to have extraordinary preservation restrictions. Why doesn't it?

Priya Jain:

So this goes back to an exemption in the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, where the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol Building were marked as exempt.

Other federal buildings or federally assisted projects where historic buildings are impacted go through this very comprehensive review process. Now, having said that, despite the exemption, previous studies done at the White House with the involvement of the National Park Service note that, even though this formal process is not required, the NPS staff tried to adhere to this process to the best extent as possible.

And in prior projects that have been much smaller in scale, it appears that these internal consultations and advice from the National Park Service and other agencies has been sought before the project was initiated and executed.

Geoff Bennett:

But that wasn't the case here?

Priya Jain:

It is not clear. It has not been shared, to my knowledge, in the public domain what the nature of these consultations have been.

I should note that the National Park Service and the secretary of the interior's guidelines for treatment to historic buildings, and specifically in relation to new additions, states that new additions, exterior alterations or related new construction will not destroy historic materials, features and spatial relationships that characterize the property.

Moreover, the new work will be compatible with the historic materials, size, scale, proportion and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment. This language that I just read from the National Park Service document is meant to be an advisory. It's a guidance.

However, throughout the nation, the federal projects, other historic buildings use this guidance in the way they treat historic buildings. So it's surprising that the most important building in the nation, it's not clear whether these guidelines have been followed and what those deliberations have been like.

Geoff Bennett:

Professor Jain, the White House today defended the demolition and redevelopment work.

Here's what the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said:

Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary:

There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex. I think, sitting here today, we're all grateful for those efforts in the modifications that happened at that time. And, again, in due time, the East Wing is going to be more beautiful and modern than ever before.

Geoff Bennett:

So how does this square with what past presidents have done? Certainly, no president has sought to demolish an entire wing of the White House.

Priya Jain:

Yes, and this is something that we noted that, despite the fact that there have been successive additions and changes to the White House, this would be the first major change to the building in the last 80 years.

And I should also point out that the National Park Service lays out that any changes to a property that have happened, for example, the East Wing, which was added in 1942, they acquire historic significance in their own right and should be retained and preserved.

So, from our perspective, it is unclear whether that sought of assessment of the historic significance of the East Wing, the East Colonnade was done. So the scale of this project, at least in the last 80 years, to the exterior appearance of the White House is unprecedented.

Geoff Bennett:

What are the potential risks, tangible and intangible, of demolishing and rebuilding such a prominent piece of the White House?

Priya Jain:

Right. So any new structure that comes in its place is basically not the old East Wing. It's a new structure. And if I'm looking at kind of more recent news stories, it seems like it is not just the East Wing, but also the East Colonnade, that has now been demolished.

So — yes, so I think anything, I mean, what is lost is now lost. Any new construction that happens would essentially be a new building.

Geoff Bennett:

So, conversely, what are the potential benefits or opportunities, if any, that might come from this redevelopment?

Priya Jain:

So, for anybody who's worked on historic campus or with historic buildings knows that buildings cannot be frozen in time, especially if they're being constantly used.

I think, from our society's perspective, we also know that there is not just one way of doing a project. There are multiple design options. There are various ways in which programmatic requirements are right-sized, whether we — what should be the size of this ballroom?

As you know, in this process, the ballroom was initially proposed to be designed for 650 people. And then later on, the project scale was expanded to now be up to 1,000 people. So we encouraged in our statement for this conversation around the size of the project to be had with a broad consensus of people and to take their advice into consideration.

Geoff Bennett:

Priya Jain, chair of the Heritage Preservation Committee at the Society of Architectural Historians, thanks for your time.

Priya Jain:

Thank you for having me.