A federal commission that oversees plans for monuments in the nation's capital voted Thursday to reject the current design for a memorial honoring President Eisenhower, sending the concept back to its architects for revisions.
The National Capital Planning Commission voted 7-3 to endorse its staff's report opposing the current design. The objections focus primarily on the scale and placement of columns that would hold large stainless steel tapestries framing a memorial park honoring Eisenhower.
— bigstory.ap.org
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The director’s recommendation said the design did not adhere to design principles put forth by the commission, obstructing views of the Capitol along Maryland Avenue.
...
In response, John Bowers of Gehry Partners said “the design principles are subjective and ambiguous.” (WAPO)
How do you spell E G O ?
At least Bowers summed it up in one sentence. Shoemaker would have written a book.
why doesn't susan eisenhower design it? surely she's good for something other than obstruction of the design process?
Why are all post-Maya Lin memorials super lame? Especially the WW2 .... what a crapfest.
"why doesn't susan eisenhower design it? surely she's good for something other than obstruction of the design process?"
What would you have her do, if she has objections to what kind of memorial is planned for her father? Is she somehow duty-bound to keep her mouth shut and go along with whatever stroke of bold genius that Frank Gehry casts out, lest she be called "obstructionist"?
I agree with Mrs. Eisenhower, and I'm glad the design process has been obstructed. D.C. is the better for it, in my opinion.
eke, i said she should design it so there isn't any reason for her to bitch about it any more. she likes 'traditional' stuff just like you do. i'm sure "the public" will love what she comes up with.
her brother was on the commission that selected gehry, and he saw gehry's design, and approved of it. her influence has not been healthy in this process.
let's just let the tax payers pay for whatever time gehry and his staff invested (since we don't want architects to work for free). if there is going to be a memorial, susan has nothing better to do with her time than bitch and complain and cry until she gets what she wants. so, i propose we give her whatever she wants. let her design it. either that, or quit wasting tax payer dollars on the project entirely, and let her go back to her troll cave.
Presuming she isn't qualified to design a memorial, which is a pretty good assumption, then I guess what you are saying is that, yes, she should just shut up and know her place and not "bitch", huh?
Susan Eisenhower is not "crying", and she's anything but a troll. Her criticism has been articulate and well reasoned. You may disagree with her, but she is certainly entitled to speak her mind about what kind of memorial her father should be given.
You are correct. Should have said "grandfather", of course. Thanks.
she can speak about anything she wants. she can speak about nuclear energy, and russia, and all the things she is an expert at. regarding memorial design, i don't see why her input is any more valuable than her brothers towards their grandfather's legacy, and i don't see why her criticism of architecture would be more valuable than that of the national capital planning commission, and i don't see how her opinion on expenditure of tax dollars is more appropriate than the opinions of the elected officials in that committee. so let her complain, but don't give her complaining any more merit than it deserves.
david leaving the commission and going quiet, after apparently generally approving of gehry's work, right after his sisters started complaining, is just messed up. the problem with the process is that it was going well, and had a representative of the eisenhower family involved, before susan started her witch hunt. it's not really some big public outrage thing, it's a lady with too much time and too many resources. you're not trying to keep "the public" happy, you're trying to keep susan eisenhower happy. so let her design it so she can be happy. there's no reason to believe whoever she picks is any better of a designer than she is.
if she gets her way stopping the progress that's already been made, it won't be a memorial to dwight eisenhower. it will be a memorial to susan eisenhower. a tantrum is a tantrum, whether it's 'traditional' or not.
anne is an interior designer right? I'm sure she would do a great job giving susan her memorial.
As I'm sure you know, there has been serious criticism of the Gehry proposal from many fronts, from nearly the moment it was first published, for reasons having nothing at all to do with alleged vanity on the part of Susan Eisenhower. This has been anything but a one-person jihad - a google search will quickly confirm this.
quondam, as it appears whatever actually happened to david is lost to time, and you seem to have a better grasp of the past than many, perhaps you have a way of letting david speak for himself instead of his sister speak for him? he was the sole representative of the eisenhower family on that committee. if the family wanted something different, surely having his voice there would have been beneficial?
it seems pretty hard for me to find statements from david saying he doesn't support gehry, despite the fact he was on the committee. it's only susan and sometimes anne speaking for him. almost sounds like somebody shut him up.
eke, when i read the articles linked after googling "eisenhower memorial," i think the majority have susan's name in them, though some are too short to have much of anything. here's one:
http://cjonline.com/news/2013-05-02/speaker-ike-memorial-dispute-hinders-extraordinary-story
Grandson David Eisenhower, while on the memorial commission, voted for Gehry's design. However, granddaughter Susan Eisenhower has disrupted the project by denouncing Gehry's vision that includes tall woven steel tapestries depicting scenes from Eisenhower's life and framed by stone columns.
i didn't really mean to single you out like that quondam, but if you can find what really happened with david leaving the commission, after reports that he did support gehry's plan, i would be interested in seeing them. the commission actually has a lot of documentation of what went on in previous meetings, but i don't think there is much as far as naming names goes.
i think this whole thing is a snow job. susan is spolied rotten and throwing a temper tantrum, which gave the people who think there is some debate over "traditional v. modern" a reason to come out from their caves and tell us what "the public" wants. if it's something other than that, i think david would have made some sort of statement before leaving the committee, or it would be his name on the letterhead either beside or instead of his sister's.
He said she said. No matter, the design is pure shit. Not even good enogh to be crap. The committee should fire him without hesitation.
If Gehry had any sense he'd stuff his titanic ego under the nearest mountain range and make a graceful exit before they do.
Sorry everyone, I seem to have stepped in something and tracked it into the forms.
possibly the one and only time i agree with number 2 ...
"susan is spolied rotten and throwing a temper tantrum, which gave the people who think there is some debate over "traditional v. modern" a reason to come out from their caves and tell us what "the public" wants. "
Living in DC, I can say that the reaction against this design has been mostly negative. There are the usual architectural critics who mock the average person for not "getting it" but the criticism has come from even modernists. My quess is they can smell the shit. After all, that's how these people usually climb up thier greasy political poles. And if you don't think there's a debate between traditional v. modern, then you're the one living in a cave. You participated in a 1,500 plus comment post on exactly that, yet you still want to pretend that there's nothing to it? If you can't tell that a metal fenced compound with 80' tall concrete piers 10' in diameter is the work of an egomaniac...
Living in DC, I can say that the reaction against this design has been mostly negative.
Thayer D with a thumb on the pulse of that part of the community that agrees with his/her opinion.
Oh Steven, you're just saying that to discredit me wholesale. Why don't you do a scientific study and look at Greater Greater Washington, a blog on all things urban in DC. Type in Eisenhower Memorial and tell me what you get. Or, you could defend this design, eitherway you could do more good than high school innuendo that passes for criticism.
if you didn't always come from the same position, with our without the rest of dc behind you, i'd probably credit your speaking-for-all-of-us feedback a little more.
as it is, this whole situation is so screwed up that i've almost moved past caring how it turns out. we're likely to get another half-baked memorial like the wwii, designed by some sort of consensus of activists instead of a designer.
my interest in this whole situation now isn't in the relative popularity of the design. it's in the position of the architect. if an architect is selected, hired, encouraged, paid, and the design approved, this professional acting in good faith doesn't deserve to have his name dragged through the media as a ego-driven prima donna. gehry's office has redesigned this thing multiple times - they haven't exactly been uncooperative.
while i still think it would be in gehry's best interest to quit, he's probably too invested.
next best, those in charge should take responsibility for their opinions. if, despite the original selection, they don't want what gehry does, fire him publicly (after paying his fees to date) and move on to someone who will serve as their drafting service. they'll own the results.
I agree with Steven. There is a fine line between art and design when it comes to memorial projects. There needs to be a certain degree of freedom when designing a memorial as with public art or environmental art. Creating a work of art is not possible with design by committee. Designing a memorial or any site specific artwork is not the same as designing public housing or a library. With any of these projects the " genius loci" is the main objective. With too many cooks in the kitchen any "strong clear vision" gets watered down. The project is blah but that's what they get for not understanding and facilitating the creative process. They should have hired someone that they thought would create something close to their desired outcome rather than hiring a big name and trying to get them to adjust to their liking.
Steven, don't kid yourself, you'll never credit me "credit" for anything, and after reading your commentary, it wouldn't mean anything to me anyway. As for caring about the architect's name being dragged through the mud, that's very gallant of you to come to his defense, but I'd venture to guess that he wears this kind of rejection as a badge of honor. There's one element of historicism that Gehry seems to subscribe to, and that's the patronizing architect holding himself above the rabble. As for your defense of this design, "my interest in this whole situation now isn't in the relative popularity of the design". Of course, it's never about the design, that would be almost vulgar. It's about the principle!
"The project is blah but that's what they get for not understanding and facilitating the creative process. They should have hired someone that they thought would create something close to their desired outcome rather than hiring a big name and trying to get them to adjust to their liking." Or, the architect could concede that this design is a turkey and go back to the drawing board. But no, that kind of humility isn't possible for the great architect. 'You get what I serve you and you like it!'. What happened to architecture as a collaborative effort? I agree with jla-x on this one point, they should have known that going with Gehry is like betting in Vegas. Roll the dice and hope you get to be the next Bilbao.
Sorry, ThayerD, but I'm totally in agreement with Steven on this one. You're right that there are legitimate arguments against this design - issues that can be discussed related to land use, scale, pedestrian environment, all those issues that architects have to deal with. No matter what is implemented, some people will like it, some will hate it, and it will be able to be critiqued on all kinds of metrics.
But in this case, a client hired Frank Gehry, knowing what he intended based on specifics of both this project and his voluminous and highly-praised catalog of past work. That halfway through the project people not involved in the selection process started crying foul is not fair to the architect's original contract and direction - direction given by the client - for the work. Gehry is getting blamed here for doing exactly what he was hired to do, and it's not fair for him, or any architect, to be criticized on such flimsy, personal, unquantifiable bases.
exactly, principle. i'm in defense of the architect as a professional, contracted to do what he does. donna made my point better than i did, of course.
"You get what I serve you and you like it"
no but if you hire Slayer to play your wedding don't be angry that they won't play Barry Mantilow songs or if they try to (like FG did) and it sounds weird. If you wanted Barry Mantilow then hire Barry Friggin Mantilow. If you want someone that will play anything on demand then hire a wedding band that does that kinda thing. Nothing wrong with Slayer, Barry Mantilow, or the We play anything wedding band, just that they all do their own thing and the "client" needs to respect that.
"You can't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree"
this professional acting in good faith doesn't deserve to have his name dragged through the media as a ego-driven prima donna
Even if he is one. It's all entertainment - the media coverage, the commission, the starchitect, the memorial. The more egos the better. Think 'reality' tv.
Does the architect produce a signatured work or a work that pleases the client (where the former does not necessitate the latter)? We can also play that game of affinity in reverse : the architect has chosen to work in such and such conditions under the aegis of such and such a person - is he not therefore bound to abide by their criteria of acceptance (here we differentiate criteria of being paid for time spent irrespective of acceptance or rejection and criteria of acceptance of design). Even if the architect was approached and not the other way around, this rationale applies. There is a measure of schizophrenia by some here who..when it fits them, claim tbat architect must abide by the clients criteria and now, they state that the choice of architect is the base denominator of the design criteria... Or is it because, insiduously, and this they might not own up to (because, on differebnt turf, they may well criticize star architectdom), it is the underlying stardom that nuances and directs the flow of their opinion? Lets replace gehry with any architect non grata for the sake of illustration... Let us also remember that Gehry was pretty flexible in his berlin appartment buildi t and it seems he was also very non-idiosynchratic in his facebook co project. Just to be clear, im not stating my opinion. But just remarking that we seem to have contradictory ethics which we choose where it suits us...
And my personal opinion is that the sculptures are horrible, the ones shown. This is an insult to master sculptors who work in traditional or modern Iidioms...if there is a figurative sculpture involved, why dont they choose someone good? And this could then be a joint sculptor-architect work. Or maybe just plop in a chinese factory made eisenhower there ...although actually the chinese have fabulous figurative artists...both indigeneous or western via the communist era soviet liason and now gglobal. Maybe the eisenhower statue should be made to face china...in expectation of Iitssurging superiority and the ensuing war with it.
It was a crap design, so it's all probably for the best. And it's never a bad thing when a starchitect gets taken down a peg or two for doing crap work. Besides, why is Eisenhower getting a memorial? Seems weird.
The sculptures do suck.
The job of the architect is to facilitate the clients criteria but to do so with his/her own artistic Vision. The clients job is to choose an architect or an artist that they think will most likely deliver a vision that suits their project. The artist or architects job is not to completely relinquish any mark of authorship to accommodate the clients artistic vision. Architects and artists come with a certain built in "style." If you hire FG to design a memorial and then demand some kind of neoclassical looking thing then expect to be disappointed because that's not what he's good at. The Vietnam memorial was successful because it was basically a work of art that was transferred almost directly from the clear vision of the artist. Sure they tried to water it down by adding that statue and flag, but at least they didn't change the nature of the original design. IMO artists are better at these kinds of things because architects are too caught up with the service model of business. Too much client involvement for a project of this nature.
I generally agree with what you just wrote, Jia-x. I'm not sure how the committee thought they would get a presidential memorial suitable for Washington DC from one of the most dedicated abstract expressionist architects on the planet. What did they think they were going to get?
Actually, Gehry is probably the last architect I would ever hire to do a memorial to anyone, let alone Dwight Eisenhower. Gehry shows absolutely no interest or ability in symbolic or allegorical content, which is the hallmark of a memorial. He seems embarrassed by the notion of symbolism. When confronted with the design challenge of a memorial, he resorts to the only tool available to someone who rejects symbolic content - he shows movies: museum display dioramas of Eisenhower's life, movies of trees projected onto giant drive-in screens, etc. He has to do this, because his trademark abstract expressionism is incapable of conveying meaning.
In my opinion, Maya Lin's memorial is masterful not because it is a work of abstract art, per se, but because it is imbued with great symbolism. It is a dark, black wound on the landscape, a poignant metaphor for that horrible war.
A more fitting memorial for Eisenhower would be to park a bunk of old Soviet tanks on the National Mall.
Donna,
I don't have a qualm with anyone who likes the design, I was simply pointing out that this design was disliked by most people in DC. It transcended style and united modernists, traditionalists, and agnostics. I also agreed with jla-x's point that they should have known what they where getting when they hired Gehry and stated as much. That wasn't what Steven said though, rather he took a cheap shot at me for pointing out what every fair minded person could read in the local press, and what's pretty clear in the reactions here. Maybe Steven should have made his point on "principle" first rather than trying to delegitimize what can be easily be verified. Maybe he should have you make his points.
Architects are not sculptors. Architecture fails when they think they are.
Michaelangelo was a sculptor and an architect. His buildings are not sculptures and his sculptures are not architecture.
I feel nauseous every time I hear an architect's artistic vision. Design, yes. Art? No.
They should have hired an artist or a landscape architect.
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