The Cabinet Room is the

meeting room A conference hall, conference room, or meeting room is a room provided for singular events such as business conferences and meetings. Room It is commonly found at large hotels and convention centers though many other establishments, including even ...

for the officials and advisors to the

president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

who constitute the

Cabinet of the United States The Cabinet of the United States is a body consisting of the vice president of the United States and the heads of the executive branch's departments in the federal government of the United States. It is the principal official advisory body to ...

. The room is located in the West Wing of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

, adjoining the

Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped roo ...

, and looks out upon the

White House Rose Garden The White House Rose Garden is a garden bordering the Oval Office and the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., United States. The garden is approximately 125 feet long and 60 feet wide ( by , or about 684m²). It balances the Jacqu ...

. Though completed in 1934, the room is built in the Georgian style. The neoclassical ceiling molding with

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s was installed in 1934. A series of French doors topped with arched

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc taken ...

windows are located on the east side of the room. The light switch can be found on the wall, to the right by said doors. A fireplace, flanked by two niches is located on the north side of the room. Busts of

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

and

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...

by Jean-Antoine Houdon fill the niches. Above the mantel hangs a painting titled ''The Signing of the Declaration of Independence'' by

Charles Édouard Armand-Dumaresq Charles Édouard Armand-Dumaresq (1 January 1826, in Paris – 6 March 1895, in Paris) was a French painter and illustrator who specialized in military subjects. Biography His father, Gabriel Armand, was also a painter.Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

in 1970. The president and the cabinet secretaries' chairs are copies of a late-eighteenth century design. The president's chair is centered on the table on the east side of the room. The back of the president's chair is two inches taller than those of the cabinet secretaries. Engraved brass plates with the names of the cabinet positions are attached to the back of the chairs. The president's simply says "THE PRESIDENT." The chairs may be purchased by the cabinet members upon leaving office, in case they wish to keep the chair as a souvenir. Some cabinet members have had their chairs returned to the cabinet room for several positions and administrations. In 2006, the room was refurbished somewhat similarly to its appearance during the administration of

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

when the West Wing and current Cabinet Room were largely rebuilt following damages from a fire at the end of the

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gre ...

administration. This includes

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

style wall sconces with spread eagles supporting internally lit globes. Three overhead Moderne style glass pendant lights were recreated from old photographs and a similar surviving example in a hallway between the

and

Roosevelt Room The Roosevelt Room is a meeting room in the West Wing of the White House, the home and main workplace of the president of the United States. Located in the center of the wing, near the Oval Office, it is named after two related U.S. preside ...

. The room is painted an off-white color called ''deauville.'' A custom made carpet, in shades of

carmine Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium complex derived from carminic acid. Specific code ...

, old gold,

sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sa ...

and

fern green Varieties of the color green may differ in hue, chroma (also called saturation or intensity) or lightness (or value, tone, or brightness), or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint be ...

with a pattern of overscaled stars and olive leaves was woven for the room. The refurbishment of White House rooms is jointly undertaken by the Curator of the White House, the

Committee for the Preservation of the White House The Committee for the Preservation of the White House is an advisory committee charged with the preservation of the White House, the official home and principal workplace of the president of the United States. The committee is largely made up of c ...

, and

White House Historical Association The White House Historical Association, founded in 1961 through efforts of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, is a private, non-profit organization that works to preserve the history of the White House and make that history more accessible to the pub ...

. Costs relating to construction are often funded by the

White House Endowment Trust The White House Endowment Trust, sometimes also called the White House Endowment Fund, is a private, non-profit, tax-exempt fund established to finance the ongoing restoration and refurbishment of the state rooms at the White House, the official hom ...

. The purchase of fine art, historic furniture, or the recreation of period decorative arts, is frequently paid for by the White House Acquisition Trust.

References

External links

White House curator Bill Allman describes the recent refurbishment
{{coord, 38.8975, -77.0374, region:US-DC_type:landmark, display=title Rooms in the White House Articles containing video clips

References

Further reading

External links