Eisenhower Memorial unchanged, despite objections
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Architect Frank Gehry is maintaining key elements of his design for a memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower near the National Mall in a revised concept presented Thursday, despite criticism from a federal arts panel and outside groups.
Gehry's Los Angeles-based team presented revisions to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, but the changes were limited primarily to the landscape design, adding 74 trees to a planned memorial park.
Gehry has designed a park framed by large metal tapestries depicting the Kansas landscape of Eisenhower's boyhood home. Statues of Ike as president and World War II general would stand at the center. The tapestries, though, have drawn some of the harshest criticism from Eisenhower's family and others.
The Commission of Fine Arts, which oversees art and architecture in the nation's capital, has praised Gehry's "artistic vision of the memorial" and the "monumental stainless steel tapestries." But the panel has questioned the design's clarity and suggested that some tapestries should be eliminated. In November, several members objected to the towering columns and two side tapestries in Gehry's design.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eisenhower-memorial-unchanged-despite-objections-0
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80-foot tall columns that look like factory chimneys. Massive stone blocks that give the appearance of being precariously balanced over the heads of the crowds. This is the architecture of intimidation, not of celebration.
