MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump's $300 million White House ballroom is one step closer to moving forward, despite the controversy around it. Leading architecture and historic preservation groups have expressed concern that the massive new structure will overshadow the historic White House residence. But the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which has been packed with Trump allies, voted to approve the project, although they haven't even seen the final design. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith monitored the commission meeting and is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So have any changes been made to address the concerns about the size of the structure?
KEITH: Yes. And I apologize for immediately going into building lingo here. But after getting some pushback at an earlier commission meeting, the project's architect removed a pediment from the design. That is a triangular-shaped gable on the building facade that in the original design really made the ballroom structure loom over the main White House. In his presentation, architect Shalom Baranes said the president himself signed off on the change. And that satisfied the commission's chairman, Rodney Mims Cook Jr.
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RODNEY MIMS COOK JR: This is a facility that is desperately needed for over 150 years. And it's beautiful. And so the president has really given us a great deal of response with the removal of that pediment, which was quite significant.
MARTIN: Look, I said this ballroom is controversial, starting with just, frankly, these shocking images of the East Wing being torn down. What kind of public comment did the commission receive?
KEITH: The commission was hit with a deluge of messages. The commission's secretary, Thomas Luebke, said in more than 20 years on the job, he has never seen this much public engagement. In just the last week or so, he said they received more than 2,000 messages from people all over the country.
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THOMAS LUEBKE: The summary of it was overwhelmingly in opposition, over 99%, to this project.
KEITH: He said the commenters were concerned about the demolition, said the ballroom was at an inappropriate scale that would dwarf the White House, and that there is a lack of transparency with how the project is being funded. Commissioners were barely even engaged with the criticism. Take new commissioner Chamberlain Harris, whose day job is the deputy director of Oval Office operations at the White House.
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CHAMBERLAIN HARRIS: This is sort of, like, the greatest country in the world. It's the greatest house in the world, and we want it to be sort of the greatest ballroom in the world. I know that there were some comments about the size of the ballroom. But I would say, you know, accommodating a thousand-person ballroom isn't that big by ballroom standards.
KEITH: She obviously voted to move ahead. It was a unanimous vote, aside from one commissioner who recused himself because he had been Trump's original architect on the project.
MARTIN: So now what? Does the project face any other obstacles?
KEITH: There's another commission, also dominated by Trump allies, that will review the project early next month. And there is an outstanding lawsuit from the National Trust for Historic Preservation challenging the process the White House has followed to push this project through quickly. Trump said he is hoping to have the ballroom finished in just a year and a half.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thank you.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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