Table Of Content
Jacqueline Kennedy's redecoration of the Oval Office began on November 21, 1963, while she and President Kennedy were away on a trip to Texas. The following day, November 22, a red carpet was installed, just as the Kennedys were making their way through Dallas, where the president was assassinated.[20] Johnson had the red carpet removed and the Truman carpet reinstalled, and used the latter for his administration. Since Johnson, most administrations have created their own oval carpet, working with an interior designer and the Curator of the White House. The basic Oval Office furnishings have been a desk in front of the three windows at the south end, a pair of chairs in front of the fireplace at the north end, a pair of sofas, and assorted tables and chairs. In the 19th century, some presidents used the White House's second-floor Yellow Oval Room as their private offices and libraries. This cultural association, between the president and an oval room, was more fully expressed in the Taft Oval Office (1909) in the West Wing.
FIRST FLOOR
The most dramatic change came in 1866, when the east wing, having succumbed to a toolhouse, potting shed, and compost storage, was demolished and a balcony added to the east elevation in its stead. When the west terrace greenhouse burned in 1867, the entire roof was rebuilt with iron support beams and brick arches that supported a new greenhouse on top. President Ulysses S. Grant found the west wing convenient for his infamous billiard room in the east end of the conservatory just next to the house. President Rutherford B. Hayes took full advantage of the victorian conservatory fad by rebuilding one of cast iron on the west terrace in 1880 and expanding with even more of them to the south of the wing.
White House press corps
Presidents generally decorate the office to suit their own personal tastes, choosing furniture and drapery and often commissioning oval carpets. Artwork is selected from the White House collection, or borrowed from museums for the president's term. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. Gustafson said visitors previously remarked that the room didn’t reflect Hollywood’s grand imagining of the space. Workers dug five feet underground to make more room and install cutting-edge technology allowing White House officials to bring together intelligence from different agencies with the push of a few buttons.
President Truman's Renovation
Thomas Jefferson added his own personal touches upon moving in a few months later, installing two water closets and working with architect Benjamin Latrobe to add bookending terrace-pavilions. Having transformed the building into a more suitable representation of a leader’s home, Jefferson held the first inaugural open house in 1805, and also opened its doors for public tours and receptions on New Year’s Day and the Fourth of July. The official home for the U.S. president was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the 1790s. Rebuilt after a British attack in 1814, the “President’s House” evolved with the personal touches of its residents, and accommodated such technological changes as the installation of electricity. The building underwent major structural changes in the early 1900s under Teddy Roosevelt, who also officially established the “White House” moniker, and again under Harry Truman after WWII.
Digging for the west wing began in the summer of 1804 under the direction of architect and engineer Latrobe and his assistant and construction supervisor Lenthall, the same team working on the Capitol construction under Jefferson’s supervision. Jefferson had chosen the right man to undertake the most complex of American building projects. The discovery of the substance caused a brief shutdown of the White House after it was found by Secret Service officers in a common storage area on the ground floor of the West Wing, which houses the Oval Office and offices of some of the president's top aides and support staff. It was found in a zip-close bag near an entrance where visitors taking tours are directed to leave their phones, the official said.
Jefferson’s imitation of Palladio’s domestic service wings reserved the surrounding grounds for picturesque pleasure gardens as well as making the linked and covered buildings convenient. Probably even before Jefferson took up residence in the White House, his creative mind whirred with ideas of how to tweak the large Georgian pile. What he had been given as a starting point was a house of generous size with domestic services confined to the basement story and flanking government buildings about 500 feet to the east and west.
As late as 1985 the staff of the Ronald Reagan White House, working on a new “west garden room” west of the house in the original north-south exterior passage, briefly revealed traces of the wing’s large arch that had spanned the ice house. Photographs from a 1969 excavation in the West Wing confirm that the eighth lunette window opening had been a doorway and later filled with brick for a window (illustrations 24, 25).62 Walter’s 1853 plan also indicates the location of this doorway. Plans from 1877 and 1902 actually show it as a pass-through, with the north door aligned with one on the south. P. Sioussat, it faced the same colonnade access problem.65 Walter’s plan shows that two large carriage openings formed the east end of the carriage house. This temporary solution, due to the incomplete wing row, is also confirmed on the collaborative site plan c. 1805 showing Latrobe’s bold marks leading a carriage drive from the north public grounds directly into the end of the east wing.
The large gilt clock was likely created from assembled parts (both old and new) to imitate an early nineteenth century clock, similar to those used in churches and other public buildings. The artist inscribed the name “Simon Willard,” an important clock maker at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Roosevelt Room occupies the original location of President Theodore Roosevelt’s office when the West Wing was built in 1902. This room was once called the Fish Room because President Franklin D. Roosevelt used it to display an aquarium and his fishing mementos. In 1969, President Nixon named the room in honor of Theodore Roosevelt for building the West Wing and Franklin D. Roosevelt for its expansion.
Roughly 10 years after Crocker died, in 1897, the family sold the house — without the land underneath — to a contractor, who moved the mansion a half-mile away, where it remains on a 2.9-acre lot. George Hearst, the son of media magnate William Randolph, became the owner, and in 1930 tapped architect Julia Morgan to redo the home — the result being the White House-like appearance. The White House Situation Room, located beneath the West Wing, is a high-security complex where presidents monitor critical events and receive top-secret briefings. The West Wing, which houses the offices of the President's staff and advisors, was built during the presidency of President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century.
On December 24, 1929, during the first year of President Herbert Hoover's administration, a fire severely damaged the West Wing. Hoover used this as an opportunity to create additional space, excavating a partial basement for staff offices. He restored the Oval Office, upgrading the quality of trim and installing air conditioning. He also replaced the furniture, which had undergone no major changes in twenty years. With structural problems mounting from the 1902 installation of floor-bearing steel beams, most of the building’s interior was stripped bare as a new concrete foundation went in place. The Trumans helped redesign most of the state rooms and decorate the second and third floors, and the president proudly displayed the results during a televised tour of the completed house in 1952.
Jefferson would not lament the loss of his architectural vision or the treatment of his special wings, for he was known to favor the future over the past. They recall the unfulfilled and unfinished business that is historically appropriate for the ever-changing nature of the White House. There newness has always been considered superior, and even in the nation’s best interest, to any regard for historical fabric. Like the unquenchable need to use and interpret Thomas Jefferson from generation to generation, the symbolic and imaginative power of the White House is intangible and never ending, and always focused on the present and the future. During the 1840s the west wing laundry room that had moved out of the basement caught fire. During the 1850s the orangery was taken down, rebuilt, and demolished, its function moved to the roof of the west wing.
10 fascinating facts on the White House’s anniversary - National Constitution Center
10 fascinating facts on the White House’s anniversary.
Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
In December of 1869, Congress appointed a commission to select a site and prepare plans and cost estimates for a new State Department Building. The commission was also to consider possible arrangements for the War and Navy Departments. To the horror of some who expected a Greek Revival twin of the Treasury Building to be erected on the other side of the White House, the elaborate French Second Empire–style design by Alfred Mullett was selected, and construction of a building to house all three departments began in June of 1871. One cosmetic upgrade Gustafson pointed out is the ability to swap out the different 2-foot-diameter seals that hang on the JFK room wall, depending on who is in the meeting. Seals for the president, vice president and executive staff are kept in a nearby closet and can be quickly subbed. The JFK room has a long wooden table with six leather chairs on each side and one at the head for the president.
Its sophistication appealed to visiting foreigners, especially in England and America, where as early as the late 1850s, architects began adopting isolated features and, eventually, the style as a coherent whole. Alfred Mullett’s interpretation of the French Second Empire style was, however, particularly Americanized in its lack of an ornate sculptural program and its bold, linear details. Designed by Supervising Architect of the Treasury Alfred Mullett, the granite, slate, and cast iron exterior makes the EEOB one of America’s best examples of the French Second Empire style of architecture. That took place around the corner from the JFK room in a smaller conference room that no longer exists.
The history of the West Wing dates to the early years of the White House.President Thomas Jefferson, the first full-term occupant of the WhiteHouse, proposed one-story extensions to the east and west to connect thePresident's house with adjacent office buildings. President Jefferson'sdesign concepts survive in part through the terraces that connect theResidence of the White House with the East and West Wings. When John Adams first occupied the President's House in 1800, the Second Floor was generally reserved for private and family use. President Adams kept a small office adjacent to his bedroom on the southwest corner of the house, but other early presidents chose to work in rooms on the State Floor. Around 1825, the two rooms that we now call the Lincoln Suite were adapted to be executive offices.
First, at the far wall, the eastern end of the wing, a large masonry arch has been filled in. This arch presumably carried the weight of the wing’s eastern brick end wall above the ice house that protruded beyond it at a lower level. Constructed first, the ice house was covered by a wooden roof structure that was demolished when the wing was constructed, leaving the protruding wall that needed to be captured in the squared brick wing walls. The photograph clearly shows a round brick out- line of the ice house, the wing room most substantiated. By using the window and door bays as markers, it is possible to place the “ghosts” on the upper walls and the below-grade remains in a proper context despite the photograph’s warped perspective.
Your visit today helps to fulfill my goal of creating the most open and accessible administration in American history. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt relocated his office from the second floor of the residence to this newly constructed building. The West Wing has expanded and undergone several renovations since then, but it has remained the official workplace of the President.
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