ICYMI: Architects 'horrified' at Trump admin's new pitch for White House makeover: report

Architects 'horrified' at Trump admin's new pitch for White House makeover: report

https://www.rawstory.com/white-house-2676149587/

Alexander Willis March 15, 2026 8:40AM ET


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Rodney Mims Cook Jr., who Trump tapped to lead the Commission of Fine Arts, is “proposing” to replace the columns at the White House’s front entrance – known as the North Portico – with more ornate-style Corinthian columns with a more luxurious appearance, a style of architecture Trump has “long preferred,” the Post reported.

“Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” Cook Jr. said in an interview last week, per The Post. “Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me.”
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Steven Semes, an architect and professor at the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture, told the Post that Corinthian columns would be wildly “inappropriate” for the White House, calling the proposal on its face “completely absurd.”

“It’s like surgically adding or removing a couple of inches to one of your legs, thinking that you could still walk,” he said. “It becomes a very different animal. And it becomes a completely absurd animal.”.................