No Need for Architectural Review

Ball Room Design versus International Integrity? Which comes first?

The New York Times (gift link) had some real professionals and historic building experts weigh in. It’s not pretty: Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized – The New York Times

The gift link to the Trump Ballroom was taken from the New York Times by Digsby. Digby’s Hullabaloo has a piece detailing about it on her site. “It Will Need to Be Demolished.” I am not going to post the entire piece at Angry Bear. This is a partial of Digby’s presentation.

“President Trump’s ballroom has rushed toward construction, with little time for public review of this major addition to the White House.

Critics warn it still has many issues — its portico is too big, its stairs lead nowhere, its columns will block views from inside the ballroom.

And that’s just the portico.

These are the kinds of details that are normally scrutinized in the design of any building so significant — and in the review that public projects face in the nation’s capital. But barring a judge’s intervention, the ballroom is set to move forward this week anyway.

The National Capital Planning Commission is scheduled on Thursday to take a final vote approving President Trump’s ballroom, clearing the last review for a major addition to the White House that was publicly unveiled in detail only in January. Last month, another panel led by the president’s allies, the Commission of Fine Arts, discussed the ballroom for 12 minutes before unanimously approving it.

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.

Take the White House fence, a far more modest part of the complex that received more probing attention from both commissions when it was rebuilt during Mr. Trump’s first term.

The White House fence was redesigned to be taller and more secure.

Over nine months of public meetings, the National Capital Planning Commission weighed in on the size of the fence piers, the decorative tops, the thickness of the pickets and the spacing between them (a 5½-inch gap was determined to best secure the White House without making it appear imprisoned).

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Read the whole thing if you have the time. It’s an excellent interactive feature. I just despair about what this disturbed weirdo is doing to the capitol. But then he’s defacing the whole world so what else is new?”

Another Trumpian embarrassment. One might call it garish by design.

Over nine months of public meetings, the National Capital Planning Commission weighed in on the size of the fence piers, the decorative tops, the thickness of the pickets and the spacing between them (a 5½-inch gap was determined to best secure the White House without making it appear imprisoned).

Who would have thought? And our military which gets sent everywhere. How are they making out? There is a litany of things to be considered. We will never get to them as the fence needs to br resolved.