Oval Office
The Oval Office is the formal working space of the president of the United States at the White House in Washington, D.C. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it is located at the southeast corner of the West Wing.
The first Oval Office in the West Wing was constructed under President William Howard Taft in 1909, at the center of the south side of the West Wing. It mimicked the shape of the Yellow Oval Room in the main residence, which was historically used for the President to receive guests. It was damaged in a 1929 fire but restored.
The current Oval Office was the idea of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was designed by architect Eric Gugler as part of a 1933–34 expansion of the West Wing. The new office offered FDR, who used a wheelchair, easier access, more privacy, and much more natural light. The Taft Oval Office was demolished in Gugler's expansion of the West Wing, and the space became additional staff offices.
The Oval Office has three large windows facing the South Lawn, in front of which the president's desk traditionally is placed. A fireplace at the north end is generally flanked by two armchairs. Two built-in bookcases are recessed into the west wall, and are balanced by two windows in the east wall. There are four doors: the east door opens to the Rose Garden; the west door leads to a private study, bathroom, and dining room; the northwest door opens onto the main corridor of the West Wing; and the northeast door opens to the office of the president's secretary.
The Oval Office takes its inspiration from the oval rooms at the center of the White House's south facade. Presidents generally decorate the office to suit their own personal tastes, choosing furniture and drapery and often commissioning oval carpets. Artwork is selected from the White House collection, or borrowed from museums for the president's term.
Cultural history
The Oval Office has become associated in Americans' minds with the presidency itself through memorable images, such as a young John F. Kennedy Jr. peering through the front panel of his father John F. Kennedy's desk, President Richard Nixon speaking by telephone with the Apollo 11 astronauts during their moonwalk, and Amy Carter bringing her Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang to brighten her father President Jimmy Carter's day. Several presidents have addressed the nation from the Oval Office on occasion. Examples include Kennedy presenting news of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lyndon B. Johnson announcing that he will not run for reelection, Nixon announcing his resignation from office, Ronald Reagan following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11 attacks.History, 1789–1909
Washington's bow window
The White House was not ready for occupancy until 1800. George Washington never occupied the White House. He spent most of his presidency in Philadelphia, which served as the temporary national capital for 10 years, from 1790 to 1800, while Washington, D.C., a new city, was under construction.In 1790, Washington built a large, two-story, semi-circular addition to the rear of the President's House in Philadelphia, creating a ceremonial space in which the public would meet the president. Standing before the three windows of this bow window, he formally received guests for his Tuesday afternoon audiences, delegations from Congress and foreign dignitaries, and the general public at open houses on New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, and his birthday.
Washington received his guests, standing between the windows in his back drawing-room. The company, entering a front room and passing through an unfolding door, made their salutations to the President, and turning off, stood on one side.
President John Adams occupied the Philadelphia mansion from March 1797, and used the bow window in the same manner as had his predecessor.
Curved foundations of Washington's bow window were uncovered during archaeological excavation of the site of the President's House in 2007. They are exhibited under glass at the President's House Commemoration, next to the Liberty Bell Center.
White House
Architect James Hoban visited President Washington in Philadelphia in June 1792, and probably saw the bow window. The next month, Hoban won the design competition for the White House.The elliptic salon at the center of the White House was the outstanding feature of Hoban's original plan. Oval rooms became common in neoclassical architecture early in the 19th century.
In November 1800, John Adams became the first president to occupy the White House. He and his successor, President Thomas Jefferson, used Hoban's oval rooms as Washington had used his bow window salon, standing before the three windows at the south end to receive guests.
In the 19th century, some presidents used the White House's second-floor Yellow Oval Room as their private offices and libraries. This cultural association, between the president and an oval room, was more fully expressed in the Taft Oval Office in the West Wing.
West Wing
The West Wing was the idea of President Theodore Roosevelt, brought about by his wife's opinion that the second floor of the White House, then shared between bedrooms and offices, should be solely a domestic space. Completed in 1902, the one-story Executive Office Building was intended to be a temporary structure, for use until a permanent building was erected there or elsewhere. Siting the building west of the White House allowed the removal of a vast, dilapidated set of pre–Civil War greenhouses, which had been erected by President James Buchanan.Roosevelt moved the offices of the executive branch into the newly constructed wing in 1902. His workspace was a two-room suite of Executive Office and Cabinet Room, occupying the eastern third of the building. Its furniture, including the president's desk, was designed by architect Charles Follen McKim, and executed by A. H. Davenport and Company, both of Boston. Now much altered, the 1902 Executive Office survives as the Roosevelt Room, a windowless interior meeting room situated diagonally from the Oval Office.
Taft Oval Office: 1909–1933
President William Howard Taft made the West Wing a permanent building, doubling its size by expanding it southward, and building the first Oval Office. Designed by Nathan C. Wyeth and completed in 1909, the office was centered on the building's south facade, much as the oval rooms in the White House are. Taft wanted to be more involved with the day-to-day operation of his presidency, and intended the office to be the hub of his administration. The Taft Oval Office had ample natural light from its three windows and skylight. It featured a white marble mantel, simple Georgian Revival woodwork, and twin glass-doored bookcases. It also was likely the most colorful presidential office in history; its walls were covered with vibrant seagrass green burlap.On December 24, 1929, during the first year of President Herbert Hoover's administration, a fire severely damaged the West Wing. Hoover used this as an opportunity to create additional space, excavating a partial basement for staff offices. He restored the Oval Office, upgrading the quality of trim and installing air conditioning. He also replaced the furniture, which had undergone no major changes in twenty years.
Modern Oval Office: 1934–present
Dissatisfied with the size and layout of the West Wing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged New York architect Eric Gugler to redesign it in 1933. To create additional staff space without increasing the apparent size of the building, Gugler excavated a full basement, added a set of subterranean offices under the adjacent lawn, and built an unobtrusive penthouse storey. The directive to wring the most office space out of the existing building was responsible for its narrow corridors and cramped staff offices. Gugler's most visible addition was the expansion of the building eastward for a new Cabinet Room and Oval Office.The modern Oval Office was built at the West Wing's southeast corner, offering Roosevelt, who was physically disabled and used a wheelchair, more privacy and easier access to the Residence. He and Gugler devised a room architecturally grander than the previous two offices, with more robust Georgian details: doors topped with substantial pediments, bookcases set into niches, a deep bracketed cornice, and a ceiling medallion of the Presidential Seal. Rather than a chandelier or ceiling fixture, the room is illuminated by light bulbs hidden within the cornice that wash the ceiling in light. In small ways, hints of Art Moderne can be seen, in the sconces flanking the windows and the representation of the eagle in the ceiling medallion. Roosevelt and Gugler worked closely together, often over breakfast, with Gugler sketching the president's ideas. One notion resulting from these sketches that has become fixed in the layout of the room's furniture is that of two high back chairs in front of the fireplace. The public sees this most often with the president seated on the left and a visiting guest on the right. This allowed Roosevelt to be seated, with his guests at the same level, de-emphasizing his inability to stand without help. Construction of the modern Oval Office was completed in 1934.
Decoration
The basic Oval Office furnishings have been a desk in front of the three windows at the south end, a pair of chairs in front of the fireplace at the north end, a pair of sofas, and assorted tables and chairs. The Neoclassical mantel was made for the Taft Oval Office in 1909 and salvaged after the 1929 West Wing fire. A tradition of displaying potted Swedish ivy atop the mantel goes back to the mid 20th century, and the most recent plants were rooted from the original plant. The plant was removed from the Oval Office during the start of Donald Trump's second presidency in 2025 and replaced with a collection of gold objects.A Federal longcase clock, made in Boston by John and Thomas Seymour 1795–1805 - commonly known as the Oval Office grandfather clock - was purchased by the White House Historical Association in 1972, and has stood next to the Oval Office's northeast door since 1975.
President Harry S. Truman replaced the Oval Office's 23-year-old dark green carpet in 1947. He had revised the seal of the president of the United States after World War II, and his blue-gray carpet incorporated the 1945 revised seal, represented monochromatically through varying depths of its cut pile. The Truman carpet remained in the office through the Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy administrations. Jacqueline Kennedy's redecoration of the Oval Office began on November 21, 1963, while she and President Kennedy were away on a trip to Texas. The following day, November 22, a red carpet was installed, just as the Kennedys were making their way through Dallas, where the president was assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson had the red carpet removed and the Truman carpet reinstalled, and used the latter for his administration. Since Johnson, most administrations have created their own oval carpet, working with an interior designer and the curator of the White House.