A Monumental Conflict

Paul Goldberger, writing for Vanity Fair, provides an excellent and comprehensive overview of the Eisenhower Memorial controversy. I thought it was a well considered and mostly fair assessment. His portrayal of Frank Gehry as an open minded, democratic designer seemed a little generous and his depiction of the NCAS as the “aesthetic far right” seemed arbitrarily alienating, but overall it was a good read.

I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment of successful monuments:

The greatest memorials, whatever their architectural style, have conveyed a single, powerful idea with absolute clarity: the Washington Monument speaks of the singularity of the man who, more than any other, established the United States; the Lincoln Memorial of the democratic vision of the man who held it together.

That brief statement nicely summarizes my biggest issue with Gehry’s design. I don’t see the clear, concise, and coherent vision that should tie the memorial together. Add to that the misguided, if accidental, allusion to the Iron Curtain in the steel tapestries and it is just not a compelling vision for what should be stately memorial.

I also found this brief interlude into the continued relevance of classicism interesting:

There is no question that classicism is richer and more versatile an architectural language than many modernists believe it to be, and that it will never, in one sense, be passé. The Lincoln Memorial alone is proof of that. But if the success of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial means anything, it is how necessary it is to continue to invent as well as to be willing to learn from the past, and how new models of memorial design can, under the right circumstances, be both moving and beautiful.

I grow weary of the black and white philosophy of architecture. I come down hard on modernism because it is the status quo and the intolerance of a minority by a majority is always offensive. However, proponents of classicism are guilty of intolerance as well. I personally lean towards the traditional but well done human scaled modern architecture can be compelling as well. I dislike the dogmatic stances that both sides take and I feel that such hard line views are disruptive to a constructive design dialogue that could occur.