East Wing Ballroom Pitch Now Includes a West Wing Addition

The White House presented concepts for a 22,000-square-foot ballroom and first lady’s office suite. Then, floated balancing it with a West Wing colonnade addition.

Heavy construction machinery sits outside where the White House East Wing was demolished in October. (Credit: Jennifer Taylor)

The first presentation of reconstruction plans of White House East Wing on Thursday showed a ballroom that could seat 1,000 people, an office suite for the first lady plus other newly proposed improvements on the campus including a one-story addition to the West Wing colonnade to address “symmetry” concerns from the aesthetics of the proposed oversized ballroom in relation to the historic residence.

An overview of the “East Wing Modernization Project” was held before the National Capital Planning Commission, a board that oversees federal construction projects in Washington, D.C., and included presentations by Josh Fisher, the director of management and administration for the White House, and Shalom Baranes of the Washington, D.C.-based architectural firm Shalom Baranes Associates (ABA), which was hired by the Trump administration in November after McCreary Arch…