The North and South Porticoes of the White House are lined by Ionic columns, a style recognized by its elegant scroll-shaped capitals, or ornaments, at the top. That could change if Rodney Mims Cook Jr., chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, gets his way.
Cook recently suggested the columns should be changed to the ornate Corinthian style seen on the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court buildings (not to mention on some Trump properties and in the latest plans for the president’s proposed White House ballroom). Cook explained his recommendation as a matter of matching and taste.
“Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” Cook told The Washington Post, which first reported the proposal. “Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me.”
For now, the White House doesn’t seem poised to redesign its famous front and back doorways, telling The Post there are no plans to change the White House columns. Shalom Baranes Associates, the architectural firm behind the ballroom design, did not respond to an email request for its thoughts on Cook’s proposal.
Still, the recommendation is an example of an anticipatory architectural proposal, like the recent bid for a federal contract to build a new terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport by a pair of architectural firms that named the terminal after Trump in renderings without being asked.
Knowing Trump’s tastes—like that he favors putting his name on buildings and tends toward the style of columns at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida—can help get his attention and win his approval. (The argument about columns matching the buildings of the other branches of government, however, might be less convincing to an administration that seems uninterested in architectural balance.)
The porticoes weren’t part of the original White House, but the South Portico, completed in 1824, was designed by the original White House architect, James Hoban, who also led reconstruction efforts after the building was destroyed by the British in the War of 1812. The North Portico was added in 1829.
Cook said he hadn’t yet talked to the president about his idea to change the columns. Trump named Cook and others to the commission’s board for four-year terms in January, after firing the entire board last year as part of an effort to install loyalists at an organization that could stymie him from making sweeping changes to the White House campus.
Although a National Park Service report found Trump’s plan for a White House ballroom would alter and disrupt the grounds, and a preservationist group filed suit over the president’s ambitious plans, the Trump-appointed Commission of Fine Arts approved the ballroom plans last month.
If Trump takes up Cook’s idea to remodel the White House columns next, the construction zone at the People’s House will continue to expand.