In a recent interview with Boston's NPR station, WBUR, 91-year old architect Frank Gehry discussed his thoughts and perspectives on the "complicated" Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. With the dedication ceremony that took place on Sept 17th, the famed architect has expressed much irritation over criticism the design has faced in the past few months. Archinect's latest coverage of the memorial highlighted Gehry's frustration with critics and their design expectations. Gehry shared with The Guardian's Rowan Moore that critics are focusing on "arbitrary bullshit" and expecting the site "should be classical architecture."
The completed design, set to be a summation of Dwight D. Eisenhower's legacy, features bronze sculptures of young American soldiers, a presidential advisor, and sculptures of the former president throughout his life. The site's centerpiece is a stainless steel woven tapestry portraying Pointe du Hoc on the Normandy coast. Gehry and his team collaborated with architect Tomas Osinski to create the interwoven steel approach.
WBUR's Jeremy Hobson led a highly conversational interview where Gehry discussed why he wanted to design the memorial, the challenges he faced with the site, and why he wanted to "create a good neighbor" to the memorial's surrounding government buildings. He and Gehry also discussed his past works, thoughts on the pandemic, projects staying on budget, and advice he'd give to young students.
9 Comments
A real good Gehry.
What do the squiggly marks on the glass plane mean? Is this the Eisenhower monument or the Gehry scribbles monument?
The monument doesn't really capture the stature of Eisenhower. Should have expanded on the glass on pillar idea and form a large scale cube with a statue of Ike in the middle. Something you can see from far away
The "scribbles" represent the shores of Normandy. Got to see in real life, if it looks anything like the actual shores. Love the idea, though...
The building behind is waaaay too prominent. Walking past, all I see are its windows - the scribbly lines barely register on the screen, which is very transparent. Its a tough battle between literal and abtraction - but in this case, the abtstraction was too much. I don't know why the screen wasn't at an angle to the street - all you see now is a thin veil and big windows.
Hmmm. Seems a Kansas landscape would have worked better--as that is what he carried with him to Normandy. The tapestry is a good concept, but it needs more planes--each plane could have represented a different layer, and surrounded the site. Just having a single plane with the beaches of Normandy is weak in my opinion. As are the scenes -- could have had a boy on one side and man on the other, not the weird scenes of life.
Overall, the site is probably not good enough for what needed to be accomplished. The building behind obscures it, and it is too constrained. Some good ideas, but not complete.
That was the original concept from Gehry I think - scenes from the life. But through all the political battles and compromises, this is the result.
It's good, but would have been better how Gehry originally designed it, but the "image of Normandy" is (from what I can tell in photos) clearly a FOG squiggle sketch and IMO highly inappropriate. The image shouldn't be about Gehry at all, it should be stylistically neutral.
Yeah that is a weird touch. A natural representation with minimal abstraction by the artist's intent would be more appropriate. It doesn't look much like the cliffs of Normandy in real life. Had it been a sketch by Eisenhower himself, the choice would have made more sense.
Don’t know why they had to put those statues in the Frank O. Gehry Memorial...they’re a bit distracting from his scribbles.
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