Trump House, White House, and Cheong Wa Dae

Trump House, White House, and Cheong Wa Dae. November. 21, 2016 07:09. yuri@donga.commskoh119@donga.com.

The Fifth Avenue in New York is a place where Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) was mainly filmed. American luxury jewelry retailer Tiffany, which Hepburn stared at and mesmerized by the building, is a symbol of the 5th Avenue. The 58-story mixed use skyscraper Trump Tower is located next to Tiffany. The real estate conglomerate Donald Trump uses three stories from 66th to 68th as his house and office. From the sense of geometric geography in the East, this place became a propitious site where a president was produced.

As Trump was elected as the 45th U.S. president, the Trump House where he lives now drew public attention as a temporary White House. He gave his first interview with the media after being elected president, interviewed candidates to fill his cabinet, and held a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump is known to have a strong attachment to his New York house to the extent that he came home every day during his presidential campaign while traveling around the country. Reports say that he is considering commuting to the White House in Washington by helicopter from his Trump Tower penthouse.

Trump's luxurious penthouse is well known to have a nice view and interiors which appears to take inspiration from the Palace of Versailles. Comparing to this, the White House he would reside in the future seems to look simple. The White House is composed of the main residence where the president and his family stay and West Wing where offices for the President and his staffs are located. President Barack Obama used to talk frankly with his staff in the Oval Office.

Unlike the White House where the U.S. president easily visits the offices of his or her advisors, the Korean presidential office is designed as an authoritarian space. The main building, where offices for the president, private secretaries, and secretary for administrative affairs, and the secretariat building are 500 meters away, and it takes five minutes by car and 7 to 8 minutes on foot for secretaries to arrive in the main building after an urgent call of the president. When former Presidential Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon was asked after the Sewol ferry disaster, he said that the president's office was the place where the president was in. In reality, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae is constructed in a way not to have frequent conversations with the president. Exactly one year ago, then presidential secretary for general affairs Lee Jae-man rejected the offer by the National Assembly to allocate budgets to relocate the buildings of Cheong Wa Dae by saying that there were no problems in having conversations between the president and her advisors. Remodeling Cheong Wa Dae is certainly needed no matter who would be the next president of South Korea.