Trump’s Ballroom: What a Great Idea!

In the wake of a customs agreement and negotiations on the war in Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprising announcement: he plans to equip the White House in Washington with a sumptuous ballroom to host U.S. presidential parties.

The businessman-turned-president is not known for thinking small. The ballroom will be enormous (8,360 m²) and will be able to accommodate up to 650 people. Speaking to NBC News, Trump explained in detail what he had in mind. In terms of décor, we can imagine that there will be plenty of columns, gilding, chandeliers and mirrors, in the style of the most beautiful ballrooms that adorn the royal and imperial palaces of old Europe. “It’ll be beautiful, top of the line,” Trump promised.

The project must be in keeping with the classical aesthetic that currently prevails in the White House architectural complex. No aesthetic fantasies are planned: in this case, true wisdom lies in imitating rather than innovating against all odds.

The construction has been entrusted to the architectural firm McCrery. Based in Washington, it is an ardent promoter of the rediscovery of classical architecture. Now an associate professor at the Catholic University of America, James McCrery teaches in a programme that seeks to bring traditional and contemporary architecture into dialogue. Reconciling architecture and beauty: a programme that is sure to make some people cough.

The idea of a ballroom for the White House is not new: Trump has been dreaming about it for years, and in 2016, he had already offered Barack Obama $100 million to make it happen.

For the moment, it is true that the U.S. president’s residence is poorly equipped. When large crowds are expected, tents, which are by their very nature temporary structures, are erected on the south lawn: “When it rains or snows, it’s a disaster,” says the president, and not without reason. Building a permanent structure is also a matter of consistency: if guests are dressed in their Sunday best, wearing elegant suits, sophisticated hairstyles, long dresses and high heels, it’s not to wade through mud or take shelter under polyethylene.

Behind this seemingly crazy architectural project, there is therefore a certain amount of common sense.

But on this side of the Atlantic, the announcement was met with smirks. For a French or Austrian person, hearing that the White House is one of the most beautiful and historic monuments in the world is laughable. What nerve, on the part of this rough-and-ready businessman, to dare to imagine that he could rival the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the Redoutensäle at the Hofburg or the ballroom at the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo? 

But that’s not the point. Rather than triggering smug sarcasm, Trump’s approach should be of great interest to us. With his ballroom and gilding, the American president is reviving a centuries-old conception of power: building to last. “We’ll be leaving it and it’ll be a great legacy project,” Donald Trump rejoices. Polyethylene has no future and will not attract crowds in two hundred years’ time, that’s a fact.

It is fortunate that our kings had the same reflex as Trump today, or we would still be living in Frankish or Visigothic tents, having destroyed the splendour of the Roman Empire. The architecture of power is built to last. Palaces allow today’s petty republics to still shine thanks to the investments in stone and marble made by the monarchs of yesteryear. 

Let’s take this idea further. Building to last is all well and good. But a ballroom? The naysayers—on the Left, of course, but there are also good people on the Right who sneer at Trump’s ill-advised initiatives to ensure their good standing at dinner parties—tell us that it is a waste of money. Once again, they have failed to understand the true meaning of power. France’s power in the time of Louis XIV was built on the festivities at Versailles as much as, if not more than, on the battlefields. So many wars were fought by the Sun King, yet their memory has been lost: who still remembers Marshal Villars and the victory at Denain? So many artistic victories still shine brightly today: Mansart, Le Vau, Le Nôtre, Le Brun and Lully imposed their style on all the courts of Europe. The king himself was the first to take to the stage to dance and make the court dance, and in his wake, all the sovereigns turned their gaze to the royal residence of Versailles, the venue for the most sophisticated entertainment.

The art of celebration is one of the government’s areas of activity. Building a ballroom is not an unnecessary luxury. The ball has become the place where the excellence of our Western civilisation is expressed and where the amiability of our manners is displayed. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna danced wildly, which did not prevent it from settling the fate of Europe after the turmoil of the revolution and establishing an order that lasted until the outbreak of the First World War. In 1919, very serious and austere diplomats gathered at the Paris conference to try to find peace. There was not much dancing, and the Treaty of Versailles that emerged from it ended in global catastrophe twenty years later. 

Trump wants to build a ballroom? He is absolutely right, and others would do well to follow his example.

The icing on the cake is that the ballroom will be financed entirely with private funds. The construction cost, estimated at $200 million, will be covered by Trump’s own fortune and private donors. That’s one more reason to rejoice. In France, Louis XIV has been replaced by Emmanuel Macron, who shamelessly uses public money to build horrors that soon no one will want. The choice is easy.