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II. THE EFFECT ON THE MALLThe proposed memorial would dramatically alter the physical, symbolic, historic, and experiential character of this part of the Mall. The plan is to destroy the Rainbow Pool, lower and shrink it, then encase it is granite, in effect to build one memorial on top of another. Moreover, because pedestrian access would be blocked through the memorial by the 6-foot walls enclosing the sunken plaza, visitors walking or marching on the Mall would have to detour around the new memorial. The Park Service has stated that due to the sacred character of the new memorial space, future gatherings may have to be restricted or entirely banned in this area. At the beginning of this paper I asked if the Mall represents an exception to the degradation seen in other public spaces. The answer must now be no. If this WWII memorial is actually built with its impersonal triumphalist character, its sense of enclosure, and its outright antagonism toward the historic Lincoln Memorial and the open character of the landscape, it will certainly result in a tremendous degradation of the National Mall as open and free public space. MALL AS PUBLIC SPACE IN 2000; WHAT VISION?In trying to conceptualize what the National Mall is becoming as public space in recent decades and particularly with the proposed addition of the WWII Memorial, some new models come to mind. The multi-acred memorials located around the Lincoln Memorial evoke a kind of memorial "theme park". They invite the visitor to 'experience" the different wars as separate and distinct stories with widely different significance in American history and their effects on the national psyche. They engage the visitor's emotions in sober and somber reflection on the "downside" of democracy. The Park Service has blocked off large areas into separate "rooms", and the proper distance and respect within these zones is enforced by Park Rangers and Park Police posted nearby. More than a theme park, however, the funerary and sacrificial themes of the war memorials add a sacred character to this space, making it into a kind of national pilgrimage "church". The visitor not only learns and feels. He or she walks past walls of names and faces of the dead, touches them, joins the procession of humanity partaking of an experience that is at once intensely personal but also, because of the context of American history and the Mall environment, a national ritual about the place of war in the modern age. The WWII Memorial's "sacred precinct" with coffin and eternal flame has already been likened by CFA to the apse of a church, too sacred to be violated by pedestrians walking through it. There is yet another metaphor raised by the WWII Memorial, the new militarization of this national public space. The triumphal symbols, the arches and pillars, the impersonal iconography of wreaths and flame typical in military cemeteries would in effect extend Arlington National Cemetery right across the Memorial Bridge and envelop the Lincoln Memorial in a Memorial Gardens stretching all the way to 17th Street at the base of the Washington Monument. Introduced onto the national public space and cutting into the open space between the Lincoln and Washington monuments, this stark granite plaza puts the stamp of military authority right on the spot where Americans traditionally celebrate their freedom and democratic principles. It will mean the end to the kinds of demonstrations and marches like the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963 and innumerable others that took place in, around, and through this open space. It reinforces the sense that this memorial is actually doing battle with the Mall as it has come to be utilized at the turn of the 21st century. Next: Whose Vision? |
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Copyright © 2008 National Coalition to Save Our Mall Inc. All Rights Reserved |
