Eisenhower Memorial Updates
1 03 2012More updates this week for the planned Eisenhower memorial to try and address the number of critics who have spoken out against the proposal, and this time they are focusing on the features that will help focus and frame the memorial which will be built just off the National Mall along Independence Ave. As you can see from the new rendering released by Gehry and Partners, there will be a massive carved bas reliefs showing Eisenhower on D-Day added to the design.
Unfortunately those see-through mesh tapestries are still part of the design.
[Credit: Gehry Partners]
A bas-relief, while nice, won’t mitigate the Stalinist concrete pylons or the gargantuan scale of the whole memorial. It’s wildly inappropriate and will stand as yet another monument of the profession’s arrogance.
Seriously, the design is a total mistake. President Eisenhower deserves better.
It’s good to know that the previous commenters offer such a rich history in memorial design and public projects, befitting their long distinguished careers in the architectural arts….and therefore this project must be killed.
WE are all forever wowed, awed, and thankful for your crucial negative, non-helpful opinions.
To Frank G: What more to do you want? Not only on this blog but on others as well, people have commented negatively on the scale, the columns, and the metal “tapestries.” Gehry and Partners have repeatedly missed the mark here, and the addition of the carved bas reliefs while still maintaining the other hideous elements does not address the core elements of the complaints. What they should do — go around the city and look at monuments and memorials people respond positively to and pull elements from those into one design for President Eisenhower.
Example: Take the design of the DC War Memorial, add a statute of President Eisenhower in the middle like the Jefferson, add some fountains like the WWII on either side, add some reliefs along the perimeter like the FDR, add some landscaping for accents and beauty, and wa-la… done.