West Wing Executive
Residence Proposed
East Wing Eisenhower building Treasury building Proposed East Colonnade Grand staircase Staircase Garden Arched windows East portico South portico Pediment Executive Residence West
Colonnade East
Colonnade
The New York Times built a 3-D model of Mr. Trump’s proposed East Wing ballroom using plans released to the National Capital Planning Commission in February. The panel, whose board is controlled by Trump allies, was expected to vote on the design on Thursday. Amid a flood of negative comments from the public, the vote has been delayed.
A Times analysis of the plans shows that in both scale and design, the $400 million ballroom would upset the architectural harmony that has been essential to the White House and its surroundings.
Mr. Trump has designated classical architecture to be the “the preferred and default architecture for federal public buildings” in Washington. But the East Wing design breaks one of that style’s principles — symmetry.
The neighborhood around the White House had long followed a symmetrical pattern, with the main roads and structures converging at the Executive Residence. Take a look at this aerial map from June 2025, four months before the old East Wing was demolished.
The East and West Wings flanked the residence, each connected by a colonnade. The footprints of the two annexes were largely on par with each other, each smaller than the president’s home.
Circular lawns anchored its north and south sides. While not identical, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to the west and the Treasury building to the east were similar in size.
Asymmetry in scale
At around 90,000 square feet, the new East Wing is designed to be three times as large as the one demolished in October. Its footprint, which includes a ballroom with a capacity of at least 1,000, will dwarf both the Executive Residence and the West Wing.
The new garden design includes a grid of stone pathways and is larger than the previous Kennedy garden. The new East Wing structure would push into the South Lawn, and the once-circular driveway would be altered to make room for it.
The proposed East Wing destroys the hierarchy between the White House’s center — the Executive Residence — and its periphery, said Basile Baudez, an associate professor in architectural history at Princeton University.
“We have a building that displays much more monumentality and wealth than the main house,” Dr. Baudez said of the new East Wing. He added that the design treats what was originally a secondary building of the White House complex as a primary one.
Asymmetry in design
In classical architecture, a portico usually sits at the center of a building facade. (Take the north and south porticoes of the Executive Residence, for example.)
But in the new East Wing design, the east portico, a main entrance to the ballroom, is pushed to one end of the building.
Mr. Trump has said this portico was modeled after ones on the Treasury building directly across the street from the East Wing. But unlike the East Wing design, all three of the Treasury building’s porticoes, including the main entrance shown above, sit at the centers of their respective facades.
The new East Wing’s south portico would be more than double the width of the one on the Executive Residence, which has been a prominent backdrop for White House ceremonies and a primary entrance for guests to formal events.
This portico creates a visual dominance of the East Wing over the central building, and conflicts with the property’s overall symmetry.
Mr. Trump’s initial architect of choice, James McCrery, is known for classical architecture, which drove large parts of the original design for the new East Wing. But as Mr. Trump wanted to go larger and larger with the ballroom, Mr. McCrery pulled back his involvement, until Mr. Trump eventually switched architects in December, to Shalom Baranes Associates. Mr. Baranes has designed other government buildings and is known for more modern builds.
In his updated designs, Mr. Baranes has removed a pediment that was previously on the East Wing’s south portico, and changed several doors and windows. The vast footprint remains.
