Tag Archives: Memorials

WWI’s monumental sorrow

The National World War II Memorial opened in 2004 on the Mall with a classical design that has been wildly popular with WWII veterans. Had America regained its senses after decades of embarrassing modernist monuments? Alas, no. A nontraditional memorial … Continue reading

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Podcast: Shubow on Gehry

Here’s a podcast – a first on this blog – of Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society, appearing on US Modernist Radio to denounce Frank Gehry’s design for a proposed modernist memorial to Frank— oops! I mean … Continue reading

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Shubow on WWI memorials

Here is the latest column in Forbes magazine by Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society, on the design competition for a monument to World War I: “First Look at the World War I Memorial Competition: All the … Continue reading

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Gehry’s Ike vs. the nation

The New York Times’s editorial “Battle Over Eisenhower in Washington” falsely poses the debate over Frank Gehry’s proposed memorial for Dwight Eisenhower as pitting Ike’s grandchildren against World War II veterans. This is not so. The Gehry design is at … Continue reading

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A monument to courage

A newly proposed memorial, called the Monument to the Courage of Those Who Suffered During the Atlantic Slave Trade, was the project for students in Prof. Nathaniel Robert Walker’s Architecture of Memory course in the Art and Architectural History Department … Continue reading

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A memorial contest for WWI

An international competition will be held to design a memorial for World War I – the only major U.S. conflict without a national monument on the Mall. The memorial would not be federally funded. The $20 million or so cost … Continue reading

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What monuments tell us

Recently, as museums to remember the stain of slavery in America are under construction in Washington and planned in Charleston, there has arisen the vital question of whether memorials should speak in a traditional language everyone can understand or a … Continue reading

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Trench of blood and poppies

Among the most moving, impressive and beautiful temporary memorials in recent years is the flood of blood poppies in the moat around the Tower of London. Conceived by artist Peter Cummins to honor the sacrifice of Britons who died in … Continue reading

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A Gehryesque critique

This critique of the critique of the Gehry design for a memorial to Dwight Eisenhower, “An Eisenhower Impasse,” by Ned Cramer in Architect, the journal of the American Institute of Architects, is so twisted that it merits the sobriquet Gehryesque. … Continue reading

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Ike memorial update

Frank Gehry has agreed to remove the two smaller of three giant screens, or as he calls them, tapestries from his design for a memorial on the Washington Mall to Dwight Eisenhower. It appears that the central sculptural plaza would … Continue reading

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