(New York) Ah! If Barack Obama did not make fun of Donald Trump during the annual dinner of the White House correspondents, on April 30, 2011, his target may not have thought of taking revenge on this humiliation by brigating the presidency.
However, well before this evening, the 44e President and his advisers have given a first chance of warning the jump of the property developer in the political arena. They might have avoided, among other upheavals, the transformation of the White House into a Mar-A-Lago or a Versailles on the Potomac.
David Axelrod tells the story in his memories, entitled Believer And published in 2015. One day in 2010, Barack Obama’s advisor receives a phone call from Donald Trump, who then holds the show of the reality show The Apprentice. The latter, after having viturated against the tents installed outside the White House for a recent state dinner, makes an unexpected offer to his interlocutor.
“Let me build a ballroom that you can go up and dismantle. Trust me. It will look great, ”says the future president at David Axelrod.
In February 2015, the White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed Trump’s offer, giving to hear that the president and his advisers did not take him seriously. “I am not sure that it is appropriate to have a brilliant gold brand on any part of the White House,” he said with irony.
Ten years later, David Axelrod regrets the rider in which this offer was processed. In fact, Donald Trump has never digested her. To hear it, she injured him more than the mockery of Barack Obama.
“I proposed to build a ballroom. They refused, “he recalled in a bitter tone in 2016 during a rally in Ohio. “I was going to put $ 100 million to build a ballroom in the White House, because a tent is not terrible. »»
Golden chandeliers and candlesticks
Barack Obama’s successor probably exaggerated by saying that he was ready to invest so much money in this project in 2010. But man has a number of fixed ideas. And, on July 31, the White House announced the construction of a ballroom that the presidents “wish for 150 years”, can be read in an official declaration, but probably inaccurate.
The dimensions of “the status ball of the White House”, which will encroach on the eastern wing of the White House, are breathtaking: 8400 m2or almost double the size of the current presidential residence, with a capacity of around 650 people.
Image provided by the White House
Conceptual image of the interior of the ballroom
Judging by the visuals broadcast by the White House, the space will have a familiar air for the regulars of the Mar-A-Lago ballroom, private club from Donald Trump to Palm Beach: fitted windows, chandeliers and golden candlesticks, fluted columns and ceilings with symmetrical … and golden moldings.
Cost of the project: 200 million dollars, which will be spent by Donald Trump and private donors, according to the White House. End of construction: “Long before 2029,” said the presidency spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
This ballroom will be added to the efforts already deployed by Donald Trump to leave his brand indelible on one of the most famous buildings in the world, inaugurated on 1er November 1800 under John Adams, second president. Last week, 47e President has proudly unveiled the new patio which now covers the lawn of the White House Roseraie. Patio which also resembles that of Mar-A-Lago with its white chairs and its yellow parasols.
A month earlier, Donald Trump had supervised the installation, on the north and southern lawns of the White House, of two 27-meter masts at the top of which now float immense American flags.
And it seems to add new gilding every day to the rococo decor of the oval office.
From Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette
However, unlike these additions and ornaments, the ballroom, if built according to the dimensions revealed, can hardly be removed or removed by one of Donald Trump’s successors. Hence the reserves of purists, including Martha Joynt Kumar, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Towson and specialist in the presidency.
“When the western wing (where the oval office is located) was built under the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, the architect Charles McKim, perhaps the most famous of her time, has given herself a lot of trouble to ensure that she would not have an impact on sight. It did not dominate in any way the original building. In the case of the proposed ballroom, it is a question of harmony and balance. This is a very important addition, ”says the retired political scientist, who is careful not to make a final judgment before having seen the final plans of Jim McCrery, the architect hired by Donald Trump.
Ditto for Stewart McLaurin, President of the Historical Association of the White House. “The southern portico, the northern portico, the east wing and the west wing, as well as the Truman balcony, all sparked worries at the time, but today, we cannot imagine the White House without these emblematic elements,” he said by press release.
Internet users are less circumspect. Since the unveiling of the construction project of a large golden ballroom at the White House, they have multiplied the memes comparing Donald Trump to Louis XIV or presenting him under the attours of Marie-Antoinette.
The last word may come back to Robert Wellington, art historian and theorist. This specialist in the Sun King’s Court will show a book entitled in October Versailles Mirrored: Power of Luxury, Louis XIV to Donald Trump (Versailles reflected: the power of luxury, from Louis XIV to Donald Trump).
In this work, the author will explain that the symbols of power, magnificence and success that Donald Trump likes to surround himself, from Mar-A-Lago to the White House, are only mystification, in the same way as Versailles.
