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The American Institute of Architects last week came out to defend famous architect Frank Gehry’s controversial design for a national memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Members of Eisenhower’s family have called Gehry’s design too extravagant. Others object to Gehry’s avant-garde approach, featuring statues of the president and World War II supreme Allied commander in Europe framed by metal tapestries depicting images of his boyhood home in Kansas. The tapestries would be held up by 80-foot-tall columns.
Monuments to Eisenhower and other presidents
Congress took over funding and construction of the monument in 1876. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chief Lt. Col. Thomas Lincoln Casey cut the height from a planned 600 feet to 555 (10 times the width of the base) and scrapped plans for ornate adornments on the obelisk and the ring of columns around the base. "; imgArray['credits_byline'] = " (National Archives/Newsmakers / Getty Images) "; imgArray['loaded'] = 0; gallery_images[10637101][17] = imgArray; //]]>
Poet and author Maya Angelou objected that the paraphrase makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit. The Interior Department initially announced that the quotation would be corrected, but then decided to have it removed altogether to protect the structural integrity of the statue. "; imgArray['credits_byline'] = " (MANDEL NGAN / AFP/Getty Images) "; imgArray['loaded'] = 0; gallery_images[10637101][23] = imgArray; //]]>
The location drew criticism because it displaced Japanese flowering cherry trees. The Commission of Fine Arts objected that the Pantheon design would compete with the Lincoln Memorial. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his permission to proceed and laid the cornerstone in 1939. "; imgArray['credits_byline'] = " (George Skadding / Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image) "; imgArray['loaded'] = 0; gallery_images[10637101][24] = imgArray; //]]>
John Adams, Jefferson's rival and the second president of the United States, doesn't have a memorial in Washington, D.C., but there is a movement to create one. "; imgArray['credits_byline'] = " (Abbie Rowe/PhotoQuest / Getty Images) "; imgArray['loaded'] = 0; gallery_images[10637101][25] = imgArray; //]]>
This photo shows Robert F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy and Eunice Kennedy with their children at Kennedy's grave on May 19, 1964, Kennedy's first birthday after his assassination. "; imgArray['credits_byline'] = " (Lee Lockwood / Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image) "; imgArray['loaded'] = 0; gallery_images[10637101][34] = imgArray; //]]>
Earlier last week, Utah Rep. Rob Bishop introduced legislation calling for a new design competition for the memorial and eliminating $100 million in future funding for the current design.
“Representative Bishop’s legislation allows Congress to exercise governmental authority in a wholly arbitrary manner that negates the stated selection process,” American Institute of Architects CEO Robert Ivy said. “It is nothing more than an effort to intimidate the innovative thinking for which our profession is recognized at home and around the globe.”
Bishop responded that he was inviting more design ideas to create a fitting tribute to Eisenhower, saying: “This bill has nothing to do with influencing the innovative thinking of architects, and everything to do with the responsible management of more than $60 million of taxpayers’ money.”
This isn’t the first time a presidential memorial or Gehry building has drawn controversy. Click through the galleries to see other memorials and Gehry projects.
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Source:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/2013/03/18/architects-defend-gehry%E2%80%99s-eisenhower-memorial/