The NHPA established the National Register of Historic Places and mandates a review for any federally funded project at a building or site that is on the list. Architects who have gone through such reviews know how thorough—or burdensome, depending on your point of view—they are. Why didn’t this apply to the White House?

Even homeowners whose private property falls within a historic district in the United States are subject to ordinances or oversight if they want to, say, switch out their historic windows or expand a porch. The fact that the president bypassed a review process that applies to every other private citizen, and to less significant buildings, came as a shock.

Section 107 of the NHPA specifically exempts the White House, the Supreme Court building, and the United States Capitol. The reasons for this exemption are not well-documented, but it probably relates to the unique secure nature of these facilities. Another theory pertains to the three branches of the government, to avoid creating conditions where one would control another’s spaces. Even so, previous administrations have treated the White House as a significant historic building and have initiated reviews for even modest changes on the property.

But the idea that the building is completely exempt is not true. The NHPA is only one piece of legislation, and preservation lawyers have looked at other laws. The National Trust filed a lawsuit against the administration naming many. For example, there are laws that prohibit any construction on federal land without the approval of Congress. Then there are the National Environmental Protection Act and the National Capital Planning Commission [NCPC], which has jurisdiction over properties in Washington, D.C.

With the East Wing already gone, what recourse do preservation advocates have?

People wonder why the National Trust is suing the administration. There is no changing that the wing is lost. The East Colonnade, which was much more historic, was also a casualty of this entire situation. It was sneakily bundled in with the East Wing’s razing.

Beyond the loss of a physical tangible artifact, the demolition is an attack on the consultation and review process that lies at the heart of preservation policy across the country. If we undermine the merit of such reviews, that could weaken preservation policy nationwide. The bigger goal of the National Trust is to hold the administration accountable.

The White House didn’t always have the East and West Wings. The same is true of the Capitol building and its rotunda. Criticism of the scale and style of the proposed ballroom aside, these buildings haven’t been set in aspic. What would you say to those who argue that preservation efforts hinder perhaps necessary building?

From the moment people begin moving in and using buildings, changes are made. However, there are certain structures that people care about, that attain cultural significance in our society, and that are revered for the values they represent. This usually instills an ethic of care toward them. Previous additions at the White House respected the prominence of the first mansion; they deferred to it. The Executive Residence was always meant to be modest—it is not a palace.

But the main issue here is about the very purpose of the special review process afforded to the 3 percent of sites on the National Register designated as National Historic Landmarks, of which the White House is one. There has been a long history of modifications to the White House, but none as big as this, none with such an outsize exterior impact. And those previous changes were done with care—thorough reports were made far before talk of demolition; issues of salvage and reuse considered; congressional approval sought. Taxpayers, who fund the construction and upkeep of federal buildings, are owed an opportunity to weigh in on such projects, to comment and shape how they function. That opportunity was lost here.

Now I worry about what might happen to the West Wing, and on a larger scale, I worry about other structures across the country. If the federal government can do something like this with impunity, others might buck their responsibilities as stewards of historic buildings. That concerns me as a preservation architect, as somebody who believes that preservation serves a broader public good; a cultural, social, economic, and environmental good.

Considering the speed of the demolition, do you worry that the East Wing was not documented adequately?

In a court filing, the administration revealed that it used laser scanning, photogrammetry, and large-format photographs to document the building before demolishing it. However, as somebody who has done this kind of work, I know that the process is fairly involved. It’s not something that you say, “Well, I’ve done it.”

For example, with the Historic American Buildings Survey, administered by the National Park Service and made available to the public via the Library of Congress, there is a long process of data collection, creating drawings, analysis, and return visits to capture inadequately documented areas. A team will submit a draft report, which is often revised a few times with the help of additional visits, now no longer possible.

It is a kind of work that requires a lot of care and comes with great responsibility. In the event that a building is lost, those drawings serve as the only accurate record of it. For reasons that are entirely unknown—other than the stated goal to complete the project within this presidential term—the rush to demolish the East Wing was unjustified. I cannot see any rationale to ignore the kinds of reviews that allow architects to be deliberate and deliver a well-considered design.

The ballroom is now in NCPC review. Can we expect meaningful changes to follow that process? Or do you see this retroactive review as more of an appeal to the public?

In a best-case scenario, a review could have been an opportunity to rightsize the ballroom’s proposed program. The president has said that he needs space for 1,000 people or more. That’s a substantial increase from previous state dinners that happened in the realm of 200 to 300 people. But one of the stances that the NCPC has taken recently is that it does not have jurisdiction over what was demolished. Historically that has not been the case—in fact, ignoring the demolition really curtails the commission’s ability to give meaningful feedback on the development of a new design.

During hearings, there has also been little discussion from the commissioners—a lot of whom were appointed by the current administration—on the scale and the design of the ballroom addition, which is clearly within their mandate. They are doing this routinely on other projects—say, the effect of lighting fixtures in Union Station, or the visual impact of railroad telephone poles. They do not appear to be doing so on the ballroom project. They’re accepting the footprint and volume of the addition as given, which to me is a dereliction of their duty as commissioners on a council that is supposed to be concerned with the interests of public architecture.

Some of the issues we’ve discussed extend to other buildings in the federal portfolio. The General Services Administration [GSA] has identified many for “accelerated disposition.” Should we expect more actions like that at the White House?

The federal government has built a lot, especially in the postwar era. With time, agencies change scope or size, and they may end up with surplus buildings. The GSA, the landlord of these buildings, has routinely sold buildings that were no longer needed.

But, in the past, this has typically followed a process that involved protecting historic buildings that were listed or eligible for listing with preservation covenants. Given the lack of decision-making transparency and loss of federal preservation staff, there is fear that these determinations will not be made for the current list of buildings, and they may be hastily demolished, like the East Wing.

Many seem to be on the chopping block for being brutalist in style.

We need to remove preservation from aesthetic concerns—they undercut the important role that architects and preservationists play in the climate conversation. In fact, the preservation field has worked hard in recent decades to break away from aesthetics and align itself with more important goals, like reducing embodied carbon. Different styles come in and go out of fashion.

I do believe that, in the current moment, criticism is overwhelmingly levied against brutalist architecture, given the administration’s executive order that mandates a preference for classical styles for federal buildings. Yes, some are stark and cold, or lack human-scaled elements. And, yes, we probably don’t need to save every example—in the same vein that we don’t need every art deco building, or 18th-century or 19th-century building. But there have been plenty of successful case studies of mitigated brutalist buildings—Boston City Hall is a good example, as is the Hotel Marcel in New Haven, Connecticut, originally designed by the same architect, Marcel Breuer, as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s headquarters, which is on the GSA’s list.

This argument also extends to more recent examples, such as the deconstructivist San Francisco Federal Building, by Morphosis. I may not be a fan of every architectural style, but, as a preservationist, I would advocate for these buildings’ survival. They are markers of moments in time and reflect American societal values. And reusing rather than dismissing them forces the architecture community to come up with ingenious and creative solutions—which is what we ought to be encouraging.