pennsylvania avenue 1600 nw is the most famous address in the united states, well , you can't get here by taxi, you'll be dropped off at 17th street, at the checkpoint, metal fences. behind them is a discreet mansion in the paladin style, the residence of all american presidents, starting with john adams. over the years of its existence, the white house has become synonymous with power, a symbol of the institution of the presidency for american citizens and people around the world. this command center in the museum interiors

and the hall is available memory of its corridor of thousands of guests and tourists, hundreds of foreign states, dozens of presidential administrations. it changed over time with the development of technology, suffered fires, reconstruction attacks. each president contributed to the development of this unique complex, the very idea of ​​​​its creation belongs to the first us president george washington. who never managed to live in the white house, at the end of the 18th century, eight cities of new york were awarded the status of temporary capital of the united states. philadelphia, lancaster, york,

baltimore, princeton, annapolis and trenton. but both congress and george washington believed that the capital of the united states should not be dependent on the new state. a decision was made to build a new city for which washington chose a site in the shape of a diamond with a side length of 10 miles along the potomok river on the border of the states of maryland and virginia. the city would be named after washington himself, and the district, which would be directly subordinate to congress, would be named after columbia. the competition to develop the capital's master plan would be won by architect pierre charlanfant, so, first on paper, and then in life, will gradually begin to acquire its silhouettes, the most un-american of american cities. the borochny building, the avenues and wide and as if on parisian patterns, radiating from rectangular blocks. together with the city plan, panfan will propose a project for the president's house in the style of the palaces of the french kings, but george washington did not have such a scope...

competition, therefore, as expected, on it was a real competition, its results angered those who did not pass it, but all of them they wanted the house for the president not to be a palace, but a georgian mansion, suitable for a young democracy. they tried to distance themselves from the image of a king, because that is what they were fighting against.

as an irish-american, hoban drew inspiration for the presidential house from european mansions, which is why today the north facade of the white house is so reminiscent of leinsterhouse in dublin, hoban's hometown, and the extension of the southern portico, the colonnade of the château d'armée de rasténiac in france. of washington closely supervises the project insists on increasing the size of the building from nine to eleven spans. slaves and european immigrants work on the residence. they work in turns on two construction sites. the capitol is being built synchronously with the president's house. the construction will be completed within eight years, but george washington's powers expire in 1797, and the first head of the american state for whom the white house will become a permanent address will be the second president of the united states, john adams.

on november 1, 1800 , together with his wife jenad , he moves into the still unfinished building, the interior work is being completed, the plastering of the walls continues. it has to be dried in the formal dining room, the building is so cold and damp that it can only be warmed by lighting a fireplace in each room, the president's wife abigail complains to her friend in a letter, but neither the gloom nor the disorganization will prevent joe adams from realizing the important purpose of the newly built residence in the first days. i pray to heaven send the best blessings to this house to all who will inhabit it in the future, let only the most honest and wise rule under this roof. this message will be... engraved in marble in the state dining room under president franklin doane roosevelt in 1945. the first reviews of the residence will also be left by the third president thomas jefferson. already in the status of the head of the united states, he will move into the mansion 4 months after the completion of construction,

when the powers of john adams expired. at first, jefferson also complains, but not on the dampness or gloom, in his opinion the presidential house is too big, so big that it can accommodate two emperors, the pope and... the dalai lama, but this does not stop him from adding an eastern and western terrace to the main building to hide the unsightly outbuildings and storage facilities from view. since then , almost every president will make both structural and decorative changes to the interior and exterior of the presidential palace. on the question of the history of the origin of the name there is no consensus on the white house, according to one version, when british troops entered washington in 1814 , along with the capitol, they burned the white house, and after the fire it was painted white to hide the traces of soot.

according to another version, the building was originally white, the gray porous limestone from which the walls were laid was treated with plaster to make it resistant to temperature changes. one way or another, in the middle of the century, the name white house had already become firmly established in the city's vocabulary, used in letters and newspaper articles. the new building really stood out with its whiteness against the background of other buildings. in official correspondence it was still called the presidential palace, residence and home of the president, and it was only in 1901 that theodore roosevelt assigned the complex its modern name, putting the signature "white house" on one of the title forms.

the devastating fire of 1814 forced congress to seriously consider the issue of moving the capital to a city with a more developed infrastructure, but the government decided to try to restore the house president and attracted its creator, architect james hoban, to the reconstruction. he completed the restoration work in 1817, and in 1824 they added the south portico to the main building, the one that so strongly resembles the colonnade of the french chateau de rastenac. the addition of the north portico, rectangular in shape with supporting columns, was built in 1829

under president john coonsey adams. the building was given running water in 1833, gas lighting in 1848, and the first heating system was installed in 1853. electricity in the white house in 1891, but the current president benjamin harrison was afraid to even touch the switches, afraid of getting an electric shock. yes, they asked the staff to turn the lights on and off, but within 10 years the building was electrified as a whole, like the rest of the country. it happened very quickly, it was great. there was a telephone with number one in the house even during the rutherford hayes administration, but there was nowhere to call from it, because almost no one had phones. at some point, they installed a switchboard there, but in the evenings, when everyone went home, president hayes answered the phone himself. in 1902, theodore roosevelt

added a west wing to the main building. in 1909 , the oval office appeared next to the building, but it was partially destroyed 20 years later in a fire on christmas night. it was rebuilt again under franklin roosevelt, giving the office its modern appearance. we have a long way to go in the space race and we started late but this system. the white house. today it is a complex of buildings and structures located on the square 5,100 km and a territory

of 7.2 hectares. in photographs and video footage it may seem that the complex itself is small, but this is a deceptive feeling. 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, three elevators. in the center, the main historic building, designed by james hoben. it is connected to the west and east wings by colonnades, the main building has six floors, including two underground and one attic, the living quarters of the presidential family are located on the third floor, where access is closed to the public and guests, here are the central hall, the yellow oval hall, the bedroom of the president and his family, guest rooms. on the second and first floors are the historical halls, dining rooms for official ceremonies, banquets and ceremonial receptions. blue, red and green halls, family and ceremonial dining rooms, the eastern hall

of diplomatic receptions, porcelain gilded rooms, library. the attic floor is at the complete disposal of the presidential family, there may be a gym or solarium, a game room or music rooms, the underground floors are occupied by technical services. a tour of the white house takes from 7 to 10 minutes, you are constantly walking, you are not standing.

when on the news we hear the white house reported or in the white house they commented, we are usually shown this main building behind me, but all the important decisions are made in an inconspicuous three-story extension, hidden from view behind trees and bushes in the western wing of the white house, such invisibility is dictated by the functionality that the theater roosevelt conceived for it, and if the west wing is certainly inferior in its external inconspicuousness to the recognition of the main building, it can certainly compete with it in...

it is a very ceremonial room, some presidents hardly use it, they go there only to sign a bill or to meet with someone, it is very small in size, it has a large table, two sofas and a couple of chairs, there are several doors, they often work in the private office next door, and there is an office up the stairs, so the oval office is very dependent on president. some people adore it and spend all their time there, while for others it is more of a protocol room.

if a marine is on duty at the entrance to the west wing, then the president is in the oval office. the west wing of the white house is home to the famous press room, this background behind me is the very component with which the white house is instantly associated, from this lectern us presidents have addressed the nation and answered journalists' questions. it is amazing how small it seems the room in real life, not in photographs, and this is not surprising, because in the thirties a fifteen-meter swimming pool for one person was built here for franklin dallon rooseville.

in 1969 , richard nixon ordered to remake it into a hall for ... press conferences. today it bears the name of james brady, the press secretary of ronald reagan. he was wounded and left disabled in the assassination attempt on reagan in 1981. the most closed government building and the most open private residence, this status emphasizes. contradiction between the heightened security measures that are in place today and the long-standing tradition of an open house, where anyone could mingle with the president.

thomas jefferson opened the white house to the public in 1801, with horse-drawn carriages and promenades through the building . after andrew jackson was inaugurated on the capitol in 1829, thousands of his supporters flocked to the white house to celebrate, throwing an hours-long , out-of-control drunken party. to lure guests outside, waiters carried containers onto the north lawn with alcohol, while inside the crowd was smashing furniture, breaking chinese porcelain, president jackson had to be evacuated to alexandria. it was chaos, people were cutting off pieces of curtains as souvenirs, and these curtains cost 7-10 thousand dollars at today's prices, of course you want to avoid this.

during the time of abraham lincoln, crowds of people crowded the corridors of the white house, wanting to ask the president a question. to greet or get a job, they took up a lot of his time, but lincoln himself called such chaotic visits baths of public opinion, their effect was considered renewing and strengthening. even in the 20th century, citizens lined up on the north lawn to wish the president a merry christmas. it is almost impossible to imagine something like this today. over the years, the white house became more and more closed and impregnable, finally turning into a fortress by ... today, its location according to the plan of the city planner charles pierre l'enfant, although initially and was suitable for the capital of a young country, over time, the development of technology and the emergence of denser automobile traffic only exposed its vulnerability, only 90 m to 17th street pennsylvania avenue by land and just under 2 km to the glide path

of aircraft landing at rygin airport by air. gradually. the territory of the white house was overgrown with fences, checkpoints, cameras, motion sensors, heat. in the building itself, bullet-proof glass and reinforced walls were installed, on a group of secret service snipers were sent to keep constant watch on its roof. no-fly zones were declared in the airspace above the white house, and after the september 11 terrorist attacks , anti-aircraft missile systems were installed within the radius of the residence. visitors and tourists pass through metal detectors upon entering, sensors for explosives and radiation. products, before entering the white house, are tested at a remote location, even the president's relatives have learned that it is not worth bringing food with you, the secret service will throw it out.

over its more than two-hundred-year history , the white house has hosted thousands of foreign heads of state and guests on official and working visits and... usually, the weight of state duties falls on the south lawn, the state dining room. in a world of nuclear, environmental and other threats, global unity is a chance for the survival of civilization, but the east hall and other historic

rooms, then the entire logistical burden falls on the shoulders of about 100 people, hidden from the attention of the press and television cameras, the permanent staff white house, cooks, waiters, florists, cleaners, butlers and footmen, electricians and movers, to remain unnoticed, part of their job. from old

toothbrushes, from anything that might have been left over from the previous president, they get rid of put things back in their place so that the new president and his family feel at home on the first night. sometimes when presidents leave, they want to take with them someone they have grown accustomed to during their tenure. most say no. we want to work in the white house we serve the nation, they tell me, well where else can we work, this is the limit of our achievements, there is nowhere higher. i do not understand how they do not die of a heart attack, because it is very exciting to be there, they are always on edge, although you can get used to it. for example, i myself am very nervous when i go to the white house, but when i saw it from the airplane window today, i felt peaceful, i do not want to lose this feeling.

south lawn - it is also a helipad, this tradition is almost half a century, presidents leave the white house and return there by helicopter. this idea belongs to the thirty-fourth us president dwight isenhow. in 1957, he managed to convince the us secret service that traveling by air is faster, more efficient and safer than in a limousine. since then, all us presidents have used helicopters, it turned out to be convenient and practical, you can get to the site quickly enough from the main building or from the west wing. us president joe biden leaves the oval office before our eyes. for several decades, presidents have flown in a sikorsky helicopter. it can hold up to 14 passengers and weighs almost 9 tons. it is clear that regular landings would eventually ruin the lawn on the south lawn, so before each takeoff or landing on the grass

, three special metal disks are deployed under each of the landing gear. landing a helicopter on such a small site is a special skill, and taking off is also not easy, because the historic white house building is only a couple of dozen meters. the sigorsky helicopter rises into the sky, it must be said, the wave from the wind is very strong from the blade, this spectacle is worth it, of course. due to the magic of sound photography,

we're able to take you on the first sight seeing tour by airplane over historic washington dc, below us, surrounded by beautiful grounds and shade trees, stands the white house, the home of the president of the united states since george washington. the main building of the white house is actually 69, not 229 years old, at least that's what you can think if you take into account a complete restructuring of the complex in the second half of the 20th century, two major fires, several haphazard reconstructions, the installation of sewerage, electricity, heating and air conditioning systems led to the fact that by the second half of the 20th century, the white house was not originally designed for such transformations , coupled with natural wear and tear , was in a state of emergency when in 1945 it moved in

. in the first days after moving in, the trumanns begin to notice strange things. chandeliers spontaneously swinging. one of them hangs in the east hall - it is 550 kg (600 crystals of bohemian glass), it has a habit of swinging over the heads of guests during official receptions. at such moments, the trumans only glance nervously at each other, but they already know that the culprit is the rotten wooden floor of the third floor, on which this chandelier is attached. sounds also overcome. you can hear a knock on the door, but there will be no one in the corridor, do not be afraid. franklin at night you roosevelt said: old houses should creaking, stairs, floors should creak. he himself

lived in an old house in new york state. and appreciated such things, but the white house needed to be restored. roosevelt was the only president in our history who was elected four times. he died during his fourth term. it turns out that he lived in the white house longer than anyone else, and he was completely comfortable. that's why he kept repeating about creaking houses. yes, during his time the kitchen and several other rooms were redone, but a major overhaul waited until truman's arrival. in june 1948, the leg of the piano on which he played president truman's daughter margaret, fell through rotten floorboards. engineers assumed that the western part of the third floor was sinking and reinforced the ceilings with metal beams, but further study of the structure and calculations showed that it was not only the western part that was sinking, the entire building was beginning to settle and could collapse at any moment. some then said that the white house survived

only through force of habit. it was decided to move the first family to the blair house, a guest house across the street, and to arrange a a full-scale reconstruction that lasted for 3.5 years. for this purpose , a special commission for the renovation of the state residence was created, which proposed three options: the first - to dismantle and rebuild the interior, preserving the historical walls, the second - to demolish the building entirely and build a completely new residence, the third - to dismantle the outer walls, rebuild the building entirely together with the interior, assemble the historical... walls along the perimeter. the commission settled on the first option, to leave the originals intact walls, completely rebuild the inside of the building, erect a new concrete foundation , and build two additional underground levels. the task was enormously difficult. it was necessary to preserve the appearance of the building while completely modernizing its interior. both were carefully removed and folded. that is, many details were preserved so that they could be restored later, and not

just broken down. but the main transformation was the lining of the building with a steel frame. in december 1949, workers began dismantling the white house from the inside. they dismantled floor by floor, wall by wall, leaving by the mid-fifties only the outer contour supported by temporary metal supports. the building began to look like a box with a huge empty space. 28,000 m2. trucks and excavators could move freely inside. in the second stage of reconstruction, workers built a skeleton of metal construction inside with reinforced concrete floors between the floors. over the next year and a half, construction crews erected new walls were installed in the building, communications were installed , and interior decoration was done . the grand opening of the residence took place in march 1952, president truman and his family returned to a new large white house. this reconstruction is considered one

of the most radical events in the history of the white house and one of the most serious engineering challenges of its time, and if the white house definitely owes its salvation to truman's reconstruction, then the restoration of the appearance of the original interiors to jacqueline kennedy. when the kennedys moved into the white house, the furniture, according to the first lady, looked like it had been bought at a discount store , and indeed, truman's renovation was so expensive that the first floor had to be furnished with department store furniture. jack kennedy was disappointed with the artificial materials of the furniture and trim, all these people visiting the white house and not seeing anything in it that dated back to before 1948 , she told live magazine. she called the white house a bargain store. you know, she kind of hinted, but no, he has to look.