Invited guests entered the room and walked over to the president standing before the fireplace, bowing as a presidential aide made a low announcement of their names. Replete with formal dress, silver buckles, and powdered hair, the event was a stiff public ceremony almost military-like in its starkness and sense of hierarchy. ![]() The levee, a tradition that evolved from the English court, was an occasion to allow men of prominence to meet the president. ![]() A month earlier, the two men met at the President’s House in Philadelphia, and while there is no known documentation of their conversation, they most likely discussed architectural ideas and preferences, as well as the task at hand-building a new national capital on the Potomac River. This distinctive shape apparently had been preferred by Washington to create a suitable space for a formal reception known as a "levee." Washington’s desire for an oval-shaped room may have also found its way into architect James Hoban’s winning design for the White House, selected in July 1792. These bowed walls may be the inspiration for the oval shape of the Blue Room, as the room on the first floor was considered the State Dining Room for President Washington. Wyeth modeled the new president's office after the White House's most famous oval-shaped room-the Blue Room.īefore moving to the President's House in Philadelphia in late 1790, George Washington ordered that the straight rear walls of the house be rebuilt into a semi-circular form. who designed the expansion and a new office for the President. Taft ordered a southward extension of the existing structure. After his inauguration, President Taft held a competition to select an architect to enlarge and make permanent the West Wing's "temporary" Executive office built during Theodore Roosevelt's administration. ![]() The Oval Office has been the main office for the president since President William Howard Taft began working in it in October 1909.
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