Talk:White House State Ballroom: Difference between revisions

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[[:White House State Ballroom]] → {{no redirect|The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom}} – Fortunately, this project now has a stylish new name dripping in moxie and panache. I request this article be properly moved to its official name. [https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-white-house-east-ballroom-new-name-10936442 Newsweek] [https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/24/white-house-ballroom-new-name-trump/ NY Daily News] [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-white-house-ballroom-after-officials/story?id=126843455 ABC News] [[User:Archon785|Archon785]] ([[User talk:Archon785|talk]]) 21:16, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose, those sources at best couch it as “expected”, “likely”, and even note that Trump himself has not decided. Until there is an official announcement it should stay as is. [[User:Mfield|Mfield]] ([[User_talk:Mfield|Oi!]]) 21:27, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

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Uncle Bash007 (talk) 20:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this thing going to go exactly? The ~~Ellipse~~ South Lawn is about 11,000 square meters. A rectangular building of 8000 square meters would not quite fit inside it. A 8400 square meter room would seat 7500 people, not 600, at round tables, which is the least efficient use of space. I think the number must be wrong, maybe off by a decimal place, but I haven’t found a source that discusses the impossibility of this thing. GA-RT-22 (talk) 15:27, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So I looked up some examples. 8400 sqm is about the size of a Costco, Walmart supercenter, or Ikea. In US units of measurements, it’s 1.5 football fields. GA-RT-22 (talk) 15:35, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A site plan was just added to the article. It shows the ballroom as including the east wing plus a new section that’s almost as big. The current east wing is two floors with a total floor space of about 3000 sqm. So if there is a three storey addition and we include the existing building, we would be up to 7500 sqm. GA-RT-22 (talk) 15:49, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it’s showing how large the East Wing would be after the ballroom expansion. It would be the original East Wing plus the ballroom. Remember, the administration said that the First Lady’s offices would be temporarily relocated during the ballroom’s construction. GN22 (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see what GA-RT-22 is talking about. It doesn’t come close to being a 90,000 sqft footprint East Wing, much less a 90,000 sqft ballroom. Try drawing a 90,000 sqft polygon extending from (or including!) the East Wing on Google Earth… it’s off by a lot. My belief is that the 90,000 sqft is not the footprint of the ballroom, but rather the full floor area of a two storied East Wing, its basement, AND its rooftop. The ballroom itself (on the second floor of the new East Wing) could be something like ~15-~20k sqft (which would be very comparable to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ballroom — seats 700 and is between ~17,000-~20,000 sqft depending on the source).

In other words: “The White House State Ballroom” isn’t just the name of the new ballroom; it’s being used as the name of the entire new East Wing. It’s a very understandable misinterpretation of the White House statement calling the ballroom “…a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space” to assume it means a new “90,000 square foot ballroom.” Until some journalists start noticing that it’s obviously not so, we’re just going to have to pretend that it is. Cookieo131 (talk) 20:45, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rexophile: Did you do the 3D renders that appear on the White House web site? Are you an employee of the US government? Do you have a conflict of interest? GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:50, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. I made the collage using already-uploaded photos here. I don’t know what makes you think I made them. Rexophile (talk) 02:08, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You put the wrong license notice on your upload at File:Stateballroomcollage.png. The images you put in the collage are not in the public domain, and your derived work is not in the public domain. You should have chosen “CC 3.0” and credited the author, McCrery Architects, per terms of the CC license. GA-RT-22 (talk) 08:27, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

TBQH this is more of a request. Since the announcement, I’ve been confused and curious and the rapid announcement, approval, and construction timelines. I’m sure I’m not the only one and so I believe fleshing out these processes on this page would benefit the public interest. Jccali1214 (talk) 01:44, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Freedoxm: You can’t use the word “replacement” in the lead unless it already appears somewhere else in the article. That’s because the lead does not introduce any new information, it just summarizes the article. See WP:LEAD.

And you can’t use “replacement” in the article unless you cite a reliable source that uses that word or a close synonym. That’s because everything in the article needs to be verifiable. See WP:V. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since the sources cited aren’t calling it a replacement I’ve reverted it for now. While calling it a replacement doesn’t seem entirely objectionable, the East Wing arguably also includes the PEOC, which is not known to face replacement from this. Hopefully we’ll get better coverage on the construction work and the plans soon enough. Cookieo131 (talk) 20:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the Cost section, towards the end, the following text appears: “but after the Post reported remarked on the legal requirement”
I suspect this is supposed to say “the Post report remarked” or simply “the Post remarked”. I’m not sure what the author intended to say there, so I’m not going to edit it. Just doesn’t sound right to me. Supertin (talk) 03:20, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. In a case like this, what I do is go back to the cited source to see what it says: “But after a Post reporter pointed out the legal requirement …”. So the Post didn’t report on the legal requirement. What happened is that one of their reporters was talking to someone in the administration, and told that person about the legal requirement during the interview. That’s not the same thing as “the Post reported [or remarked] on the legal requirement”. I have changed the text to more closely match what the source says. GA-RT-22 (talk) 07:46, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to convey bias with some of the wording

“represents a visionary enhancement” “unprecedented elegance” “poised to become a crown jewel of American presidential architecture, blending timeless neoclassical aesthetics with luxurious modern detailing.”

For example 2607:FEA8:6CE9:E200:E34B:9EFD:7A96:4D85 (talk) 23:17, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@2607:FEA8:6CE9:E200:E34B:9EFD:7A96:4D85 Political slant to the article. 24.46.96.148 (talk) 23:22, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did Donald Trump write this? “Visionary”, “timeless”, “crown jewel” – it sounds like a marketing brochure. Very biased write-up. HHohlowski (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there’s clear evidence of POV issues, and probably LLM use. I have added the POV template accordingly until the language can be corrected. Someone can also take the time to revert out the recent changes by these anonymous editors. MatthewESullivan (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven’t seen recent sources use this word to describe the work being done, and the word feels insufficient and maybe jarring, given recent facts.
Options might be “is a planned [replacement, rebuild, renovation, reconstruction] of the East Wing”. We do have a WH spokesperson source specifically for “rebuild”. Mikewem (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“Entirety” “will be rebuilt” does strike me as a very very close synonym to “replacement”, per the previous discussion about this Mikewem (talk) 18:12, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I never liked “expansion”. It was a result of a compromise from a previous discussion after someone wanted to call it a “replacement”. I’m a big fan of just using whatever the reliable sources are calling it. Anyone care to poll the usual sources? GA-RT-22 (talk) 21:17, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I solved it. “Expansion of the White House” should be vague and correct enough to tide us over until we have more sources to poll Mikewem (talk) 22:43, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The ballroom is being partially funded by multinational technology conglomerate holding company Alphabet, the world’s third-largest technology company by revenue. They are providing approximately $22 million according to CNBC and CBS.[1][2] Viriditas (talk) 23:12, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

as part of a settlement*

I imagine we’ll have a full list of the donors (or settlement parties) sooner than later and we’ll add it at that time. Mikewem (talk) 23:57, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 2016, during the second term of the presidency of Barack Obama, then-candidate Trump offered to pay $100 million to fund a ballroom at the White House but was rejected.

This appears to be another one of the media myths about Trump. “‘He did offer to build one,” Axelrod told Time Magazine… ‘I don’t recall him saying he would pay for it. I passed his offer along to the social secretary.'”[3] In other words, Trump offered to pay for the ballroom in his speeches to MAGA supporters, but not in reality. This is a common Trump trope we see come up again and again. He says one thing in his speeches and does quite another. The article needs to take into account this major, glaring discrepancy between what Trump says and what he does and stop acting as a stenographer for unsupported Trump claims that are easily disproven. According to Time, Trump has been claiming that he was going to build it, pay for it, do it for free, etc. since at least 2011. The Obama admin was unable to confirm that he ever promised to pay for it. Content removed as yet another Trump myth. Viriditas (talk) 23:26, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per best practices, I’ve preserved all criticism and merged it into the relevant sections. Viriditas (talk) 00:20, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Leaky.Solar: I left a message on your talk page about WP:CRITICISM, which you restored, and then you deleted the message. Just a note that I have left you a second message here. Please don’t continue to restore criticism sections when the material is merged into the body per our best practices. Viriditas (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which is better? It is my opinion that it is considered poor design to bunch images together. A separates the images for desktop and mobile, providing ample white space for readability and avoids bunching the images up together. It also places the July 31 rendering in the appropriate “Planning” section next to the relevant text, “Plans for the ballroom were announced by the White House on July 31, 2025.” B reverses this, bunches up the images, and places the rendering in the lead instead of “Planning”. A new C version has been added that removes images from the lead, adds the East Wing to “Background”, and moves the new rendering plan to “Planning”. Viriditas (talk) 02:22, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll

My C would be no image in the lead (yet), the historic East Wing in Background, and the plan in Planning Mikewem (talk) 02:09, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“It is common for an article’s lead or infobox to carry a representative image—such as of a person or place, a book or album cover—to give readers visual confirmation that they’ve arrived at the right page.” MOS:LEADIMAGE. We don’t really have a representative image because it hasn’t been built yet. I think the golden rendering probably best serves the purpose for now. There is a problem with the license, which has been discussed at Commons, and the renders have already been removed once, but I suppose we can use it for now. Other than that, I am in favor of putting images in the most appropriate section, as called for by the MOS. Also please put a blank line above the image in the markup to make the paragraph break explicit. GA-RT-22 (talk) 05:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My preference is B, the status quo, until we can get a more precise diagram or rendering. Option C isn’t bad either. Option A isn’t really representative of the project plans because it shows the structure that’s presently being demolished. GA-RT-22 pointed this out already and I’m not going to bother starting the deletion process, but wiki has no rights to use the rendering which still has a copyright for McCrery in the corner. Cookieo131 (talk) 15:36, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’m confused. Why are we using an image that we shouldn’t be using? Viriditas (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because no one has removed it. It looks like it just got nominated for a speedy deletion. I’m not really familiar with image rights policies but my understanding is based off of the deletion of other copies of the same image. Cookieo131 (talk) 19:00, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Remove “ also called The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House, ” in opening line, it does not appear in either provided reference. CuHead1 (talk) 08:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template.

It does actually appear in the reference. I am not sure it is WP:notable as a term though, so I advise you to discuss this on the talk page. Happy editing, Slomo666 (talk) 10:22, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where does it? Can’t find it either. JayAhr (talk) 12:37, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both sources mention donors receiving a pledge agreement for “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House”. Belbury (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:51, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/23/trump-white-house-ballroom-reaction
The guardian has released a diagram of the plans based on what we’ve seen in October. I’m putting this here for the attention of anyone who has experience with svg editing and wants to update our diagram (especially @Belbury) Cookieo131 (talk) 19:05, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I can have a go at that now. Belbury (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cookieo131 – Here you go, uploaded under a separate filename: File:White House ballroom plan, October 2025.svg. Belbury (talk) 19:28, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That interpretation looks too big for the model shown by Trump on that page. The model looks more rectangular. GN22 (talk) 19:52, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scroll down a little more. There’s a graphic (not a picture of a model) Mikewem (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But the model Trump showed looks different than the graphic. GN22 (talk) 20:16, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The model extends to the edge of the paved driveway and the graphic also extends to the same spot at the edge of the paved driveway. Mikewem (talk) 20:22, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But the model shows the new East Wing will be rectangular with virtually straight lines while the graphic shows otherwise. GN22 (talk) 20:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it looks a bit off (especially the colonnade: the Guardian’s image clearly shows the new structure covering and extending past part of the former East Wing that looks uncovered from the model it’s based off of) but I think it’s the best approximation that we have. If I find a source with a more precise approximation (or the actual plans) then I’ll probably put it here and ping Belbury (as long as he doesn’t mind!) again. Cookieo131 (talk) 00:24, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:21, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Under the responses section, citation #35 is an article that confuses historic preservation preview with NCPC review. These are not the same thing. The references earlier in the entry do not confuse the two, and the section that cites footnote 35 runs contradictory to that info. Would love if someone would delete reference to 35 and edit out NCPC review in the sub.
The WH is not subject to historic preservation review, and any submission to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House is voluntary and in an advisory capacity. The NCPC is the agency that reviews capital projects like that of any community development department in the country; their review is not voluntary. See: National Capital Planning Commission Knufflebunny (talk) 21:20, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the White House did not answer whether a competitive bidding process was followed.

This is not relevant to a privately funded project, and including such a random tidbit comes across as agenda pushing. Archon785 (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Privately funded projects employ competitive bidding processes all the time. It’s a standard part of business ethics. Therefore it’s relevant to a section on ethics-based responses to this project per WP:RELEVANT. The land on which the project sits is not privately-owned, its upkeep and maintenance will presumably not be privately-funded, and the language is sourced. Mikewem (talk) 18:01, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not say “nothing will be torn down” as quoted in the article. The AP has admitted the quote was an error on their part. It came from a reporter, not from Leavitt: [5]

In a story published July 31, 2025, the AP incorrectly attributed a quote to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that “nothing will be torn down” in reference to construction of a new ballroom at the White House. It was a journalist, not Leavitt, who said the quote while asking a question during a briefing Leavitt gave to reporters on July 31. The error was brought to the AP’s attention on Oct. 22. 47.146.184.136 (talk) 20:23, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

White House State Ballroom → The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom – Fortunately, this project now has a stylish new name dripping in moxie and panache. I request this article be properly moved to its official name. Newsweek NY Daily News ABC News Archon785 (talk) 21:16, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, those sources at best couch it as “expected”, “likely”, and even note that Trump himself has not decided. Until there is an official announcement it should stay as is. Mfield (Oi!) 21:27, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll

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