{"id":435014,"date":"2026-02-19T23:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435014\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:03:10","slug":"us-commission-of-fine-arts-approves-white-house-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/435014\/","title":{"rendered":"US Commission of Fine Arts approves White House designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the advisory council Commission of Fine Arts unanimously voted to approve designs for the White House<\/a> ballroom expansion, releasing new renderings of the controversial project. <\/p>\n

Digitised drawings and rendering<\/a> by White House ballroom designer Shalom Baranes Architects<\/a> were presented and approved in a Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) meeting on 19 February. The documents detail the 90,000-square-foot (8,360 square metre) project that is set to replace the now-demolished East Wing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Commission of Fine Arts has approved the White House ballroom plans<\/p>\n

According to reporting by the Washington Post<\/a>, the committee voted unanimously to approve the designs proposed by Shalom Baranes Architects.<\/p>\n

With this unanimous vote, the project will move forward for further discussion on 5 March by the National Capital Planning Commission<\/a> (NCPC), which “adopts, approves, or provides advice” on projects in the greater Washington DC area.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteThe CFA vote advances the project towards a 5 March meeting<\/p>\n

The East Wing Modernization<\/a> project includes replacing the former East Wing of the White House with a two-storey building and an expanded colonnade that would attach it to the Executive Residence, which sits at the centre of the White House complex.<\/p>\n

The second storey will contain a 22,000 square foot ballroom (2,043 square metres), which was commissioned by President Trump as a space to host visiting dignitaries.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Render<\/p>\n

Everything you need to know about Trump’s White House plans\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The CFA is made up of seven members<\/a> appointed by the US president.<\/p>\n

President Trump recently fired all of its previous members<\/a> and has been reappointing new members<\/a>, including former White House architect James McCrery<\/a>, this year.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteRenderings show the ballroom in relation to existing White House structures<\/p>\n

McCrery did not vote on the motion, as the architect proposed the ballroom’s initial designs before being fired from the job and replaced by Shalom Baranes Architects in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Established in 1910, the CFA reviews “matters of design and aesthetics” within the\u00a0Washington DC<\/a> area, and acts as an advisory board, but does not have approval in terms of the actual realisation of the White House expansion.<\/p>\n

If NCPC approval is granted, construction could begin as early as April, according to the Washington Post, although the project is currently being challenged in court<\/a> by the National Trust for Historic Preservation<\/a>, which is suing for lack of review.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteA large colonnade lines one side of the ballroom design<\/p>\n

As a whole, the White House is largely exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act, which mandates review for projects on federal buildings, allowing for Trump’s expedited approval process for the project.<\/p>\n

Drawings of the East Wing were effectively leaked<\/a> recently by the NCPC ahead of the 5 March meeting. Although roughly similar, the PDF presented today included more detailed sections and floor plans than seen before.<\/p>\n

The images are via the Commission of Fine Arts\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the advisory council Commission of Fine Arts unanimously voted to approve designs for the White House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,141,96,40339,40340,40341,56,54,55,659,803,3285],"class_list":{"0":"post-435014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-sectionall","15":"tag-sectionarchitecture","16":"tag-sectionnews","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-washington-dc","22":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}