With little fanfare, the Trump administration demolished the East Wing of the White House in order to make space for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom. President Donald Trump teased the project for months, first announcing his plan to build a $100 million addition back in February. But the Trump administration didn’t originally say that construction of the ballroom — whose price tag has since more than tripled — would require the entire East Wing to be razed.

The demolition trucks that began pulling down the East Wing on Oct. 20 surprised both the general public and historians and architects who didn’t realize that the most prominent civic building in the US could be altered so dramatically without public discussion. Traditionally, changes to historic public structures undergo careful rev

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