The White House

Hello everyone and welcome to the White House, you are today a small group of fortunate people to be able to discover this magnificent monument of our country thanks to President Jefferson who opened the doors of the house to the public in 1805.

As you can see we are now on the steps of the White House to first talk about the history of this house because the White House is not an ordinary house.

Let's talk about its history:

George Washington, the first president of the United States, decided to build a building that would be the residence of all American presidents, and then a competition with several architectural projects was held. James Hoban, an Irishman, was the winner. Construction began with the laying of the foundation stone on 13 October 1792 and was completed in 1800. The White House welcomed its first tenant, John Adams, on November 1, 1800, when construction was not yet complete. Once the work was completed, the porous sandstone was coated with a mixture of lime, glue, casein and lead, finally giving the building its colour and name. Several incidents took place on this building, such as in 1812 during the Anglo-American War. But also several constructions such as the west wing.

I now propose you to go back to the house.

Welcome to the White House, the house has 132 rooms, serving as bedrooms or offices, 35 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, 8 staircases, 3 lifts, a bowling alley and a cinema, all on three levels.

You can see in front of you the Roosevelt Room, a large meeting room and to your left the famous oval office. The Oval Office has become the place symbolizing the power of the President of the United States. Moreover, some of the speeches of Ronald Reagan after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 or of George Bush during the start of the military operations in Iraq in 2003 have been broadcast from the Oval Office.

The first occupant of this office is Franklin Roosevelt. Donald Trump is the 14th president to occupy the Oval Office in its current location.

You may proceed down the hallway to your right.

Here we are in the centre of the building and also in front of the Blue Room before we talk about this room, have you paid attention to the decoration in the corridors. You can notice that the decoration is quite old but elegant, the White House is a real museum because it contains many works such as paintings or vases. The White House is both the house of the President of the United States and his family and a museum of American history. It is a place where history continues to unfold.

Now let's talk about the "Blue Room", it is one of the three reception rooms on the first floor. The room is used for receptions and occasional dinners and is named after him thanks to its decoration in blue tones.

We can now walk to the east wing.

To your right you can see the Garden Room which gives direct access to the Jackie Kennedy garden.

We will now go down to the ground floor.

We are currently in front of the crisis room which is closed to the public, this room allows the President and his advisers when they have to manage crises and have secure communications with outsiders.

...