Also on Tuesday, the leader of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington non-profit organisation that protects historic US sites, wrote a letter to White House officials saying she was “deeply concerned” by the project.
The letter said the size of the new construction would “overwhelm the White House itself… 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 trust asked Trump to pause demolition work, arguing that the White House was a national historic landmark and that officials needed to hold a public review process of the plan for the ballroom.
Another group, the Society of Architectural Historians, also said it had “great concerns” about the project, similarly calling for a review process because of the size of the planned construction.
The White House has hit back at its critics, writing in a news release that “unhinged leftists” were “clutching their pearls over President Donald J Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom to the White House – a bold, necessary addition”.
Trump officials have also insisted that the renovation will not cost US taxpayers any money, and that there is nothing inappropriate about soliciting private donations to help pay for it, as Trump has been doing.
