More renderings of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom were made available in a 31-page report submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts, which met on Thursday.
The report showed the proposed 90,000-square-foot addition in the location of the demolished East Wing from several new angles, including the view from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Commission of Fine Arts was formed by Congress as an independent agency to weigh in on major capital-area building projects.
Thursday’s meeting, which took place via videoconference, featured new members recently appointed by Trump after the president dismissed all six of its members last fall.
The new members include James McCrery, the architect who previously led the ballroom project before being replaced; Roger Kimball, a critic and conservative columnist for The Spectator who has written favorably about the president; and Chamberlain Harris, a 26-year-old White House Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations who worked in the first Trump White House.
Six of the seven members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) gave final approval to the project during a meeting that was expected to only focus on the design. Commissioner James McCrery, the initial architect, abstained from voting.
The president praised the decision in a post on Truth Social.
“The Commission of Fine Arts just approved, unanimously, 6 to 0, with one recusal because he had a conflict in that he worked professionally on the job, the White House Ballroom,” he wrote. “Great accolades were paid to the building’s beauty and scale. Thank you to the members of the Commission!”
In a statement to ABC News, the White House called Harris a “loyal, trusted, and highly respected advisor to President Trump” who will be “a tremendous asset to the Commission of Fine Arts.”
“She understands the President’s vision and appreciation of the arts like very few others, and brings a unique perspective that will serve the Commission well,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in the statement.
The commission wrote on its website that “upon the completion of President Donald J. Trump’s first term, [Harris] continued her work in Florida at the Office of the 45th President, managing President Trump’s Presidential Portrait Project in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the White House Historical Association.”
