page_title: Grand Staircase (White House)
section_title: Delano, Winslow and the Truman reconstruction
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Staircase (White House) / Delano, Winslow and the Truman reconstruction
caption_attribution_description: Harry S. Truman Library and Museum Design in plaster of the railing during renovation of the White House. Date: February 28, 1951 Accession number: 71-433 http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/displayimage.php?pointer=18947&amp;rr=&amp;people=&amp;listid=3
context_page_description: The Grand Staircase is the chief stairway connecting the State Floor and the Second Floor of the White House, the official home of the President of the United States. The stairway is primarily used for a ceremony called the Presidential Entrance March. The present Grand Staircase, the fourth staircase occupying the same general space, was completed in 1952 as a part of the Truman White House reconstruction. The Grand Staircase is entered on the State Floor from the Entrance Hall.
context_section_description: Years of hastily made alterations, including the structural changes made by McKim and later with the addition of an attic story during the Coolidge administration, took a major physical toll on the structural integrity of the White House. Cracks appearing in walls and ceilings, and a sagging East Room ceiling in 1948 signaled that immediate attention was needed. To save the White House, President Truman set in place a process of dismantling the interior structure, constructing a load-bearing internal steel structure, and reconstructing the interior rooms within the new framework.
  The chief architect of the Truman White House reconstruction was William Adams Delano with a temporary Office of the White House Architect headed by Lorenzo Simmons Winslow. Truman viewed the White House reconstruction as an opportunity to address the redesign of the Great Staircase. By January 1949 Winslow had produced a design that Truman was near to approving. It closed the Cross Hall opening and reoriented the opening of the new Grand Staircase to the east wall of the Entrance Hall. In the favored design Winslow deleted the paired Roman Doric column screen.
  Truman sought approval of Winslow's design from the more senior Delano. Delano was dismayed by the plans and elevations and feared that dismantling the columns and the Cross Hall opening created by McKim was a serious mistake. Delano was so concerned about the design he travelled to Washington to meet with Truman and Winslow in person to work out a solution. Winslow prepared a series of detailed architectural models called maquettes to explore the design of the Grand Staircase and how it related to the Entrance Hall and Cross Hall. The paired Doric columns were retained, and an opening in the Cross Hall looking into the Grand Staircase were unanimously agreed upon.
  Construction of the staircase proceeded using several cream and taupe colored marbles including Vermont Westland cream. The new Grand Staircase was framed by a rectilinear archway, with the interior side walls faced with the seals of the original 13 states. Above the opening facing the Cross Hall was a plaster arch with a spread American eagle in bas relief with a corona of 13 radiating arrows. A contrasting marble string course with triglyphs and five pointed stars projected around the stairwell at the landing. Winslow designed a custom railing with cast iron balusters that incorporated the five pointed federal star within a circle he used in the carved moulding.
caption: Plaster model by Lorenzo Winslow for the balusters of the Grand Staircase.
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