Entire White House East Wing to go as cost rises on Trump ballroom project

Heavy machinery tears down a section of the East Wing of the White House as construction begins on US President Donald Trump's planned ballroom, in Washington, DC. Photo / Brendan Smialoski, AFP

United States President Donald Trump confirmed today that the White House’s iconic East Wing is being torn down in its entirety to make way for a huge US$300 million ($522m) ballroom – a far more extensive demolition than previously announced.

Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event that he had decided after consulting architects that “really knocking it down” was preferable to a partial demolition.

The President was asked about the work at an event alongside Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte, after a mechanical excavator was photographed ripping through the East Wing’s facade, leaving a tangle of broken masonry, rubble and steel wires.

The East Wing is where US first ladies have traditionally had their offices. The President works in the West Wing and the couple live in the Executive Mansion.

Trump says the new 90,000sqft (8360sqm) ballroom with a capacity of 1000 people is needed to host large state dinners and other events that currently have to be held in a tent.

Trump’s comments today put the cost of the demolition at US$300m, raising the cost from the US$250m quoted by the White House days ago.

While the US President said that the East Wing is “completely separate from the White House itself”, it is in fact physically joined to the main mansion by a covered colonnade.

The facelift has raised questions about what critics have decried as a lack of transparency, and has led to complaints that there was no advance notice or consultation.

“We are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself – [which] is 55,000sqft (5110sqm) – and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings,” the National Trust for Historic Preservation said in a letter to the Trump Administration yesterday.

-Agence France-Presse