Hello everyone, this is Andres Cervantes and welcome to my archiculture channel. Today we will learn about the history and constitution of the presidential palace par excellence. We begin the history of the White House in October 1792 when George Washington, the first president of the United States, broke ground on the building that would become the presidential residence of this country. We will begin to see the distribution of the house. The service personnel, cooks, laundry and other spaces for cleaning service were located in the basement of the house. Then we continue with the first floor, and then with the second, which, among its spaces, the most important is the yellow Oval Room, which was used as the presidential office, although this is not the famous oval office of today. The style used was neoclassical, decorating the first floor windows with moldings and interspersing triangular and circular pediments, supported by long corbels. The south façade has columns with modern Ionic capitals, we will see them better later , because they are attached to the wall. The side facades have the same type of windows as the other facades, with triangular and circular pediments, although the center windows have a different treatment, giving greater hierarchy to the access area, and between windows, the same columns that we saw appear. on the south façade. The north façade does not have columns between all the windows as in the south façade, it only has them at the entrance, although these are not attached to the wall, here we can see better that the modern Ionic capitals, they differ from the traditional ones in that these The latter have parallel volutes and the modern ones have them turned towards the corners. In this case, these four columns are here to support the pediment of the main entrance. The upper edge of the house is finished with a cornice bordered by a balustrade. There is every reason to believe that the architect was inspired by Leinster House, the current seat of the Irish Parliament, in developing the design of the White House, among the similarities are: the number of windows, the alternation of triangular and round pediments only on the first floor and square moldings on the second, the number of windows, not to mention that James Hoban, the architect who designed the White House, was Irish. Once the house was completed in 1800, George Washington did not live there as he had already died years before. Instead, it was John Adams, the second president of the United States, who was the first to live in this house. Because sandstone is porous, the stone was protected with a lime-based mixture, which ended up giving it its famous color. Between 1801 and 1809, during the term of the third president, Thomas Jefferson, colonnades were added to both sides of the house to hide the housework and stables. So we have these are the east and west colonnades and the central building will be known in the future as the executive residence. During the War of 1812, the British burned the city of Washington. In this fire, much of the White House burned, leaving only the exterior walls. It was thought about demolishing it, but it was finally rebuilt in 1815 with the advice of the architect who built it the first time. Meanwhile, the fourth president, James Madison, governed from the Octagon House for six months and from one of the seven buildings, which were seven semi-detached houses, of which by the way 2 remain. Once the reconstruction was completed in 1817, the president returned to the presidential house. In 1824 during the government of the fifth president, James Monroe, the semicircular south porch was added , supporting the roof with Ionic columns. It is believed that this façade was influenced by the later façade of the Rastignac castle, which had been built in 1817. In 1829 the north porch was added, for this new columns were placed in front of the main entrance and the pediment was extended over these, but the land to the north was also raised , so from this perspective it seems that the house only has 2 floors . In 1856, a British ship called HMS Resolute got stuck in the Arctic ice. The Americans found it and returned it to Queen Victoria, and what does that have to do with this story? Right now, Nothing. In 1866 during the term of Andrew Johnson, the colonnades built by Jefferson were demolished. And in their place, little by little, greenhouses were built on both sides of the house, ending up filling the surroundings of the house with greenhouses. In 1879 the HMS Resolute was dismantled, and several pieces of furniture were ordered to be made, among which 3 stand out, the Resolute desks, one owned by Queen Victoria, another for the Widow of Henry Grinnel, who actively participated in the recovery of the ship and The last and most famous, was given by the queen to the president of the United States. From this date on, most US presidents have used this desk. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt officially named the American presidential palace the White House. It was always believed that the White House was insufficient for everything it needed to be the seat of government, so in 1902 the greenhouses were removed and the east and west wings were built, which are connected to the executive residence through new colonnades. In the center of the west wing, the president's new space was located in a rectangular office , but in 1909 it was given an oval shape, alluding to the original office of the executive residence. This office is still not the famous oval office of the present. In 1913 the first lady established the rose garden, since this time, in each government the presidents and first ladies put their personal stamp on the garden including exotic species or species with commemorative meanings. In 1927, the wooden beams on the top floor were replaced with steel ones. In 1934, during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, modifications were made to the west wing, the most significant being the displacement of the oval office from the center of the west wing. , it is even southeast of the building, this is the current location of what could be considered the most emblematic room in the entire White House, in addition to this, the cabinet room was annexed, where the heads of the executive branch meet , and it was built a second floor, to house offices of the president's advisors. During the Second World War, a bunker was built under the east wing, this place would be known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, used by the president to isolate himself in times of extreme danger, for example, during the September 11 attacks , Although the president was not in the White House, the vice president, the first lady and other officials were evacuated to the bunker until the situation was normalized. In 1942, to hide the bunker, the east wing was modified to obtain its current morphology. In 1948, President Harry Truman had a balcony built on the portico of the south façade. But in 1949 it was discovered that the structure in general had problems, so the entire interior was demolished and the new structure would not have wooden beams, but steel and concrete. Let's see then how the white house was formed: This drastic intervention gave the opportunity to make 2 sub-basements, and in them to put everything related to service and machine rooms. With the basement unoccupied, now treated as a ground floor, this space can have new uses, the place is crossed from side to side by a corridor, we find to the northeast a space that was first used for storage, but after this reconstruction it was used as a library. To the west there is a room that was a service bedroom, around 1919 it was converted into a billiard room, although in 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt removed the billiard table and used the place to monitor the Second World War, for which the The place was full of maps and was called the map room, which although it no longer has as many maps as in other times, it retains the name. On the east side, there is a room that was first the housekeeper's office, but later became a space for general work, then bedrooms, and since 1917 it has been the china room, where the porcelain collection of the house is kept. White House. To the east of the china room, another appears room that was used as service bedrooms, in 1902 it was the social room and after this restoration it was briefly used as a billiard room, until 1957 when it became the vermeil room, a place where numerous pieces of vermeil silver were exhibited. The oval room in the basement was the servants' hall, a living room for those who served in the house, but it became the diplomatic reception room. To go up to the next floor, it would be done through this staircase, let's see what happens on the first floor, also called the state floor. The staircase takes us to the entrance hall , a type of vestibule that communicates directly with the north entrance. And to the south the crossed hall, to which the main spaces of the first floor are connected. To the east is the east room, when the first president moved to the white house this place was unfinished, so it was used to dry clothes, then it was divided with tarps to create rooms and it was even a storage place, finally it was gave it its current use, designating it for audiences and social events. Let's now go to the three state rooms, which by the way have color names. The Green Room The Blue Room, which is one of the original oval rooms, was initially a south entrance hall. Finally, the red room. These rooms have flexible use, at least the green room was used as a dining room, the red room as a music room and even a wedding was held in the blue room. At the west end was the state dining room for important dinners, and to the north of it the family dining room. To go up to the next floor is the grand staircase, which initially communicated with the cross hall, but was redesigned towards the entrance hall. Let's now go to the next level. On the second floor are the central hall, which serves as a waiting room, the east hall and the west hall. Among the spaces on the second floor are: The bedroom and the Lincoln room, used as a living room. of guests for very close guests of the presidential family. Another guest bedroom is the Queen's Bedroom and Parlor, named after having served several queens and royal consorts who visited the White House. Next to Lincoln's bedroom is the treaty room, initially intended as a bedroom, this room received this name since 1963 when President Kennedy signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, since then many important treaties have been signed here. Next door is the yellow oval room, which served as the presidential office, although later it was used as a formal reception room. To the west of the yellow oval room, there is a private room and the presidential bedroom, sometimes the president and the first lady do not share the bedroom due to the president's demanding schedule, to the north is the presidential dining room and finally the presidential kitchen No, sorry, this is just the kitchen. In addition to this, several rooms in the northern area. After the intervention in 1902, the attic was converted into a third floor with about 20 rooms, which, because it is not part of the historical rooms of the house, its use has varied depending on the president, for example, Melania Trump and her son . They slept here, Bill Clinton soundproofed one of the bedrooms to play the saxophone, Michelle Obama's mother also lived in this place. A glazed terrace was set up on the south portico as a recreation space. In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy , seeking to highlight the cultural character of the house, founded the White House Historical Association, an entity in charge of regulating the restorations, maintenance, decoration and all the museography of the White House, so from this moment, the house itself begins to be treated as a museum piece and future modifications would be minimal. While the recovery of the Rose Garden and the East Garden was in process, President Kennedy was assassinated, so the recovery of the gardens was in the hands of the new first lady, who named the East Garden the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden . 1977 First Lady Rosalin Carter established her office in the southwest area of the East Wing, located partially symmetrically with the oval office. Since then, this office has been designated for the first lady of the United States. In 1994, a truck driver stole a small plane and crashed it into the garden of the south façade, dying instantly. This made the security of the house rethink, making the protocols even stricter after September 11, 2001. And well, this has been everything for today
