First Lady Melania Trump has shared an update on the construction progress for a new 1,200-square-foot tennis pavilion that is currently taking shape on the South Lawn of the White House.
In a social media post published today, Trump writes, "I am excited to share the progress of the Tennis Pavillion at @WhiteHouse. Thank you to the talented team for their hard work and dedication."
The pavilion, CNN reports, is being created by the First Lady to create a new recreation space for the First Family. In a follow-up statement published, Trump writes, "It is my hope that this private space will function as a place to gather and spend leisure time for First Families."
I am excited to share the progress of the Tennis Pavillion at @WhiteHouse. Thank you to the talented team for their hard work and dedication. pic.twitter.com/Wzown2ho26
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) March 5, 2020
According to a 2019 proposal submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government's planning agency for the National Capital Region, the pavilion will "replace a building that currently houses restrooms and a storage space on the White House Grounds just southwest of the White House itself," and will "provide a connection between the tennis courts and the Children’s Garden." The Children's Garden was created in 1969 by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States. The pavilion will also sit nearby the Kitchen Garden, which was started by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2009.
The design of the pavilion is classically inspired, as one might expect following the recent controversy over the draft "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" executive order.
The pavilion rises to a height of 18-feet and is designed as a rectangular structure topped by a copper hipped roof. The building is marked by a central arcade framed by four Doric columns. The arcade is sandwiched between two slightly protruding wings, each marked by a fan window-topped glass door. The entire structure is wrapped on four sides by a cornice and parapet wall, with the hipped roof rising beyond the parapet.
An architect for the project has not been named.
Text accompanying the proposal states that "the proposed designs are specifically informed by the existing architecture of the White House, including the East and West Colonnades, fan windows, columns, stonework, and cornices. Architectural inspiration is drawn from the symbolic images of the White House that are so recognizable to the American public."
The pavilion is the first of two structures Trump has designated for this part of the White House grounds. The second, which has yet to break ground, includes a maintenance building that will be used by the National Parks Service, the official public stewards of the White House.
A construction timeline has not been announced for either structure, though the Tennis Pavilion broke ground in October.
Everyone involved in this can go to hell. Children dying in cages while the white-skinned First Illegal Immigrant plays tennis on our nation’s lawn. Eat the rich.
1) It's difficult to imagine the Trumps sticking around long enough to use the tennis pavillion
2) It's not clear that any Trumps play tennis.
3) it's a little tone deaf to build tennis pavilions while threatening cut Social security and medicare but, hey, Marie Antoinette.
4) A tennis pavilion may be less tone deaf than running an anti cybor bullying campaign while your husband is conducting a cybor bullying campaign.
At best this is on par with a middling Westchester county McMansion pool house. Entirely forgettable.
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Everyone involved in this can go to hell. Children dying in cages while the white-skinned First Illegal Immigrant plays tennis on our nation’s lawn. Eat the rich.
Donna, are you Liberty Bell? Weren't you a proponent of people using their real names? I came out due from behind my pseudonym because of your arguing for that.
Erik, liberty bell = Donna Sink. For some reason when I post on my phone but not in the app it shows up under my old screen name. I think it’s a funny reminder of how technology so often messes things up! But yes, to be clear Donna Sink and liberty bell are the same person.
Got it. Thanks Donna.
Marie Antoinette?
Certainly feels that way. Even looks like Louis XV's Petite Trianon
I'd bet that the Petite Trianon has inspired more garden pavilions for the wealthy that any other building.
I know a guy....and his book sits on lots of wealthy people's coffee table...marie marie
Bravo. Classy building by a classy first lady. It will fit in with the White House architecture seamlessly. Somewhere Palladio is smiling.
OK, Volunteer, I respect a lot of your opinions but this comment is sarcasm, right? Not one could call Melanie Trump classy and not be kidding...right?!
No sarcasm at all. Tell me where she has made a false step as First Lady, even one. She has been pretty much blacklisted by some of the fashion industry and savaged by the Washington Post continously, along with her child, but it has all bounced off. Seems like people would be interested in the first foreign-born First Lady, and they are, just not the self-appointed 'elites' who have only trashed themselves with their incredible boorishness toward her.
She makes so few public statements that when she does, it's taken as a message about her priorities. So a new tennis pavilion for her family's leisure use at the publicly-provided home she occupies is a priority.
Past First Ladies have prioritized personal health, children's issues, health care, reading/education, etc. So now we know Ms Trump's, since her heart didn't appear to be in #BeBest.
"Tell me where she has made a false step as First Lady, even one."
How's her anti bullying campaign doing?
She doesn't really care. Do you?
Volunteer, can you tell me a time that Michelle Obama made a misstep as First Lady? So I'll understand what you think isn't classy.
Donna, I am not going to criticise Michelle Obama. She had a fawning press for eight years and no point dredging up the past and being as petty as Melania's detractors are. Melania is the driving force behind a wonderful addition to the White House grounds and should be celebrated for that.
Counterpoint: it sucks. Architecturally bland and culturally tone-deaf.
Translation of Volunteer: "Deflect, deflect, ignore the question, deflect, deflect, make sure brain switch is on 'off' position, deflect, something, something, Obama."
tduds, her anti-bullying campaign is going really well. It provides political cover for people with their heads so far up their own asses they could see the irony through their own eyes if only they opened them.
How is that little building "culturally tone deaf"?
"Lets keep in mind there is a significant difference of character between Melania and Donald."
Cite your sources.
Erik - Tennis is as much as, if not more than, golf a recreational activity associated with the rich and status-obsessed. Compared to, say, a vegetable garden, what message does it send to the people of the nation they're allegedly leading when this is what the first lady is spending her effort promoting?
And, sure, I'll be the first to admit it's not a big deal, but it's hardly praiseworthy.
At best this is on par with a middling Westchester county McMansion pool house. Entirely forgettable.
Observations somehow prove you know the character of a person yet you immediately state how few things there are to observe. Eh? What?
as a real liberal, I'm seriously embarrassed by you so called "liberals" (not Rick or Volunteer).
You literally sound like your counterparts, you sound like MAGA wearing morons deceived to the max, I can't even take sneaky serious anymore...tduds (there is hope)...
Marie Antoinette? (like google her)
but anyway let's compare classiness (Michelle Obama at the top of course)...but shits and giggles (because you so called liberals have lost your mind) Gloves
she's classy like Jackie O
oh yeah - architecture dipshits, architecture.
Phillips Head, you’re comparing fashion to fashion. Which, at this point in society, is a shitty sexist attitude to take. “Classy fashion” has nothing to do with what is in one’s character. So I’m asking Volunteer to tell me: how does he quantify “classy” as an accurate descriptor of Melania Trump, a woman who has lied about her education, played the immigration system to get both herself and her family into the US, married a man for wealth, promoted a lie about the birthplace of President Obama, created an anti-bullying campaign that she doesn’t herself adhere to, and now uses taxpayer money to decorate things? Or does classy only refer to what she wears?
Palladio often used an unfluted Doric with base moldings, as did the Romans, btw. So I’m pretty sure that he is indeed smiling.
Palladio’s Basilica in Vicenza.
good question Liberty - but yeah for me, ,I'm a sexist white male who has made every effort to inform my daughters what the world is like - classy is fashion. (my girls can kick any boys ass btw)
I didn’t say it wasn’t Tuscan. It could be. I was simply pointing out that the columns being unfluted is not an indicator that the order wasn’t Doric.
Is this the classy lady we're talking about?
Which textbook, BTW? Vitruvius? Palladio? Serlio? Gibbs? William Ware? Or Wikipedia? All show slightly different moldings. Without being able to zoom in and examine the molding of the column and entablature, it’s pretty hard to say that the building is “textbook Tuscan”. There really isn’t such a thing.
As a lover of traditional architecture, I've never understood the obsession with finding text book renditions of any order, given that so many variants have their charms. That said, w hich Classical Treatise would you say is the most authoritative, and why?
I see the orders as guides to learn proportion, not just to produce classical buildings. Some version of them easier to use than others.
The woman cave
https://nypost.com/2016/08/01/melania-trumps-girl-on-girl-photos-from-racy-shoot-revealed/
Rick: the hypocrisy is the point. This is the party that famously champions "family values" and cries "pornography" at any mildly suggestive pop culture while also cheating on their wives and indulging their personal drug habits.
classy like JFK's girlfriend.
this girlfriend was a conspiracy theory with a porn star owning her home sometime later, no?
Yawn on the lawn. Hope her leash reaches it.
The mental image of Melania running as fast as she can away from the West Wing only to get short leashed cannot be unseen .
I'd like a GIF please.
My dog got short-leashed this morning (she's fine) and it is so damn funny to me to imagine Melania in her heels flipping up and backward in the same way!!
Women on leashes. Just hilarious.
I mean, it's funny if applied to Trump too, so I'm not being sexist.
you people...Donna I appreciate the humor!
Erik is right. I only made the joke because she's a woman. It wouldn't be funny to imagine a man getting his long red tie caught in the west wing patio door, not realizing it as he drove away from the white house (because really, running?) in a golf cart, and being short leashed 300 yards later. Nope. Only funny if vagina.
Enrico Palazzo is smiling:
Palladio, however, is not:
Come on, now - we all know that design and construction is an optimistic endeavor and projects shouldn't be reconsidered at every crisis. After all, this won't even be built in time for the Trump-ettes to use it (right??). Try to separate your political views from the issue of whether the NEXT president should be the recipient of an improved tennis/basketball court support building (as much as I am NOT inspired by this design, the existing buildings are an embarrassment to the Union. See it here
https://www.ncpc.gov/docs/actions/2019July/8077_White_House_Grounds_-_Tennis_Pavilion__Staff_Report_Jul2019.pdf).
Really truly - whoever you are voting for this year, is the crummy existing w.c. the best that the free world can do for your future leader's "throne"?
Don't hate on Melania just because she made an incomprehensible choice for a husband, nor because she apparently hasn't a clue about how to time a social media post. Do say something intelligent about how to make committee-reviewed buildings like this more beautiful.
bruh, you're dealing with really smart people who think the internet is real (social media monkees)...thank you for your thoughtful content, but don't expect these jihadis to respond responsibly. ...the link is great.
The timing does seem to be the thing - and, as I noted above - it's especially awkward when she so seldom lets folks in on her projects/priorities.
You're right, Scott, this has likely been in the works for a while. The clarifying of the building group is an improvement, and we shouldn't have expected the language to be anything but consistent with the White House.
Social media is tricky. The well-timed photo op doesn't seem to be her forte. Ah, well.
Great link. Looks like a new multi-use structure was needed, and the project is reportedly funded by private donations. Yes, the timing of construction is poor optics, and naming the multi-purpose structure a "tennis pavilion" was elitist, but the design does mirror elements of the White House, and the timing of the groundbreaking may have been
determined by when the funds were pledged/received and the work's needing to be completed before the end of Trump's four-year term.
Phillips Head, you’re Chris Teeter, aren’t you? (Posted by Donna Sink under my original Archinect screen name liberty bell - they’re both me.)
It's good to see the irrational, pedantic, ridiculous, and smug has returned with yet another dumb pseudonym. Maybe we can get a new Philadelphia fantasy-architecture-encyclopedia writer too?
Honestly, SneakyPete, they make me miss per corel.
actually SneakyPete's alter ego.
I’ve lobbied frequently for you to be banned, Chris, but people whose opinions I otherwise respect think you’re fun or something so I guess you stay. I wish you weren’t such an asshole.
https://www.newson6.com/story/...
ms. bella- https://www.nj.com/news/2019/11/truck-driver-who-stabbed-coworker-over-messy-cabin-sentenced-to-decades-in-prison.html
for the record, I don't take a name lightly and all that comes with it - Ms. Bella
To be clear, Philips Head is now gen xer.
and now revolutionary poet
1) It's difficult to imagine the Trumps sticking around long enough to use the tennis pavillion
2) It's not clear that any Trumps play tennis.
3) it's a little tone deaf to build tennis pavilions while threatening cut Social security and medicare but, hey, Marie Antoinette.
4) A tennis pavilion may be less tone deaf than running an anti cybor bullying campaign while your husband is conducting a cybor bullying campaign.
The only thing clear about the Trumps playing tennis is the athletic wear...
https://www.businessinsider.co...
Interesting take on the First Lady by Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and a member of a group that normally despise Donald Trump and everyone associated with him.
The title of the article is "Why Melania Trump is the best aspect of the Trump presidency." In order to use the superlative "best" you need at least three good aspects. For the sake of argument, let's assume Melania is a good aspect. The other two?
Four million jobs created since the election. Lowest ever African-American and Hispanic unemployment numbers. Low and moderate-wage workers are seeing the greatest percentage wage increases.
The gains are part of a ten year trend and are only fractional. But be sure to give Trump credit when the recession comes.
Of course, Trump’s claim to have created the strong labor market is baseless. The current economic expansion began in 2009, under Barack Obama, and employment growth has been remarkably steady since then. But all Presidents tend to receive credit when the economy does well and criticism when it does badly, even if their policies have little to do with it.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-does-a-strong-jobs-report-mean-for-trumps-chances-in-2020
And the gains can be attributed to extravagant deficit spending and will come with a price, this enormous debt Trump is piling up.
The core of Donald Trump’s platform is that his policies have produced what he touts as “The Greatest Economy in American History!” The truth is very different. By enacting a huge tax cut, in late 2017, that was heavily slanted toward corporations and the rich, Trump and the Republicans gave the economy a temporary boost—in 2018, it grew at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent—that has now faded. In the fourth quarter of last year, G.D.P.—the broadest measure of activity in the economy—expanded at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent, the new report from the Commerce Department showed. Taking 2019 as a whole, G.D.P. grew at 2.3 per cent. These growth rates are nowhere near the four-per-cent growth that Trump promised in 2016. Instead, they are in line with the average growth rate since 2000, which is 2.2 per cent. And this ho-hum outcome has only been achieved at a tremendous cost. The federal government is now running an enormous budget deficit and accumulating vast amounts of new debt, which will burden taxpayers for decades to come. After three years of Trump’s Presidency, in fact, the United States is starting to look like one of his highly indebted business ventures.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/new-reports-show-that-trumps-economic-promises-were-empty
I remember when conservatives were conservative. They are now morally bankrupt and fiscally irresponsible.
There are rules Rick. We just don't follow them. The comparative is used for two things ("better"), the superlative ("best") for three or more. I found this on the fly:
https://www.ef.edu/english-res...
Aggregate figures are deceptive. The slight fractional increase says nothing about how the society is faring overall, who is getting the gain, who is getting the lion's share, who isn't getting much at all or anything.
To be sure, many Americans still haven’t benefitted much, if at all, from the long recovery. And there are enormous public concerns about issues like the costs of health care and housing, as well as rising inequality and corporate greed. . . .
from the first link above.
"Four million jobs created since the election. Lowest ever African-American and Hispanic unemployment numbers. Low and moderate-wage workers are seeing the greatest percentage wage increases."
Welp.
She built a folly for Donny.
Donny is a folly.
(Kind of quiet around here)
I've been staring at the Palladio basilica (or Palladio's addition) Erik put up, above. This is some stuff. I'd be curious to see a list of all the design decisions that went into it. Three columns to solve the corner problem. The indented entablature (I'm sure there's a better term) above the main engaged columns. The combination of orders. Smaller double columns facing double pilasters to support the arches, whose entablature curves into the larger columns. Etc.
This treatment allows more openness and involvement and keeps the facade light, as opposed to solid segments of a wall. Was it a standard solution or a recent invention? Sansovino's library does similar:
And I believe it came first.
Palladio's design is more energetic and still looks fresh. Other adjectives might be exuberant, extravagant, even overwrought, depending on mood and century. I'm curious how it was received at the time. The basilica was an early design for Palladio, and his later designs were more restrained, more "classical"? At any rate, it is not a staid composition. Palladio does for the classical language what Gehry and Zaha have done for the modern.
I also wonder if it was considered "traditional" at the time. The orders, of course had been around for quite some time, but in addition to such inventions as above, they were infused with recent discoveries and humanist thought and spirit. The obvious comparison would be with our own desires today to be more "traditional," which would lead to questions about what motivates such desires, whether proponents long for tradition merely for the sake of tradition.
I'd like to think I can appreciate just about anything built that has merit, regardless of time and place. Archinect should have a classical corner just to keep this work alive.
The Romans did this too. The Arch of Constantine is a notable example.
By the way, your nomenclature is generally correct. An entablature is the whole band which run across the top of the columns, like a beam and an eave. It consists of a bottom band, which looks like a lintel bean, called an architrave. Then comes the frieze, and finally the cornice on top.
The molding that runs around an arch is called an archivolt. It’s conceptually the same as an architrave, but curved.
Thinking today about how hilariously / infuriatingly poorly timed this turned out to be.
Well, the Jefferson Memorial was dedicated on April 13, 1943, by Franklin Roosevelt, right in the middle of World War II. Maybe a little normalcy is in order during these times as well.
lol @ comparing this hacky McVersailles Pool Shed to the Jefferson Monument.
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