Behind the Scenes: Recreating the Oval Office | The West Wing

A deep dive into the set design of “The West Wing.”

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[HAL_NINER_TRIPLE_ZERO]

It is a most impressive set but it's not entirely faithful to the actual West Wing and Oval Office.
In the real Oval Office, the doors to the presidential secretary's office (Mrs Landingham/later Deborah Fiderer and Charlie) and the outside hall (next to the fireplace) are flush to the wall with no door molding. Yes, they are curved. Absent the doorknob, you would not even know there were doors there. In addition, the hallway between the CoS office and the Oval is shown to be a short passage but there is actually a presidential private study, a bathroom and a private dining room sitting between the traditional CoS office and the Oval Office.
The "Mural Room" off the secretary space, opposite the door to the Oval Office also does not exist in real life. In actuality, that is the Cabinet Meeting room. And sadly, the Roosevelt conference room lacks the windows and doors we see in the series. Lastly, the West Wing TV show completely ignores the fact that there is a 2nd floor to the West Wing suite of offices.
Most of these differences are due to budget and space constraints and attributable to artistic license deemed necessary to make camera angles more visually appealing.
In fact, the actual West Wing is much less visually exciting than what Sorkin gifted us with. I said as much to President Obama in my one and only visit to the White House. He laughed and said, "Yeah, I get that a lot from fans of *that* TV show. but my nuclear codes are real".

[leonardshapiro]

I have been in the copy of the Whitehouse in north Arlington, there is an oval office there too.

[GinaSanchez_]

The oval office set looked great, The West Wing version of the situation room was a complete fabrication.

[duxbox]

Can someone tell me what documentary this is from??

[johnbraunschweig]

Didn't they stole the set from "Dave"?