Rethinking the Eisenhower Memorial

I have been intrigued by the controversy around the Frank Gehry design for the Dwight Eisenhower memorial in Washington D.C. Nicolaus Mills, writing for The Guardian, has an interesting article about the failings of Gerhy’s design:

A memorial is not a biography in stone. A memorial’s task is not to sum up a life, but to capture the essence of a life in a unified, powerful image.

Putting aesthetics aside, I dislike the lack of focus in Gerhy’s design. It seems like an incoherent assembly of disparate parts rather than a simple, iconic vision. Subtle nuance is appropriate as a secondary level of design but there needs to be a single big idea. Take the Lincoln Memorial for example. There is a strong singular idea to the design that focuses on a singular defining moment of his life. It is simple - a single statue sitting in a simple pavilion at the end of the Capital Mall. There is plenty of opportunity to develop a nuanced narrative within the pavilion, but that isn’t the big idea. Perhaps Gehry would have had an easier time convincing us that his design is appropriate if he had focused his vision on a singular idea.