We're unpaywalling our excellent conversation with Kate Wagner (of McMansion Hell) about Trump's White House ballroom project and the politics of architecture.
This episode originally aired November 17, 2025 on Patreon — we're unlocking it as a holiday treat.
If there's a Trump-era topic that manages to fascinate without being entirely depressing, it's probably the ongoing arguments about architecture that his ascension has occasioned. Proponents of a RETVRN to the architectural ideals of ancient Greece and Rome are prominent in MAGA circles; partisans of a neo-classical revival populate government commissions, and their prescriptions find expression in various executive orders again. To understand who these people are, what their movement wants, and the kernel of truth in their grievances, we talked to architectural critic and proprietor of McMansion Hell Kate Wagner. We start by analyzing Trump's ballroom and the demolishing the East Wing of the White House — the perfect way into MAGA architecture and the mind of their Beautiful Builder himself, Donald J. Trump.
Sources:
Kate Wagner, "Duncing About Architecture," New Republic, Feb 8, 2020
— "Trump Will Not Make Architecture Great Again," The Nation, Jan 7, 2025
— "The Real Problem With Trump’s Cheesy Neoclassical Building Fetish," Feb 12, 2025
— "what the fuck are we doing anymore," The Late Review, Jan 9, 2025.
— "Wrecking Ballroom," The New York Review of Architecture, Dec 17, 2025.
Charlie Nash, "Trump Admits He Could've Built Ballroom Without Destroying the East Wing, But 'It Looked Like Hell,'" Mediate, Nov 10, 2025
Jonathan Edwards & Dan Diamond, "Trump hires new White House ballroom architect," WaPo, Dec 4, 2025.
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