Carolina A. Miranda at WP:
Every U.S. president has adapted the Oval Office to suit his taste. Franklin Delano Roosevelt placed an animal hide rug on the floor. John F. Kennedy, a World War II naval officer, hung seascapes on the walls. And Barack Obama featured indigenous ceramics on the shelves. But Trump has gone golden, taking the office into baroque and rococo realms typical of 17th- and 18th-century French monarchs. An analysis in the Cut called the decoration “An Interior Designer’s Nightmare.” But the sparkle conveys something more insidious about how Trump views himself. Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute — who governs by executive order, and has been recorded giggling in his gilded chamber with Salvadoran autocrat Nayib Bukele as his administration defies a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that he facilitate the return of a Salvadoran immigrant who was wrongly deported. God save us from the king.
When it came time to choose a design for a presidential residence in the late 18th century, Washington likewise picked one of the more restrained concepts. Conceived by Irish-born architect James Hoban, the White House, as it originally stood, combined the tidy symmetries and boxy practicality of Georgian architecture, a neoclassical style that had been popular in the British Isles during the 18th century. The White House was inspired, in part, by Leinster House in Dublin, which dates to the 1740s and now houses the Irish Parliament — a Georgian structure that is grand in scale but subdued in its surface decoration.
In keeping with the modest tone, the White House’s earliest inhabitants avoided referring to the building as a “presidential palace,” describing it instead as the “executive mansion” or the “President’s House,” the latter of which appears engraved on silver serving objects from the 19th century. It was Theodore Roosevelt who made the informal expression “the White House” the building’s official designation. The U.S. republic’s representative democracy, however imperfect and incomplete, has historically been symbolized by a “house” — not a palace.
