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WHOSE VISION?As to whether the WWII memorial represents a new kind of concept for the Mall in the 21st century, the answer must be no. It is actually a retreat into the past. The process of memorial-building reveals competing interests at work but little coordination or unified purpose. Actor Tom Hanks and former senator Robert Dole are very publicly advertising a major fund-raising campaign for the $100 million project with the motto "the right place and the right design". The major players in the WWII Memorial project are less visible, as is the full extent of what they are planning for the Mall. Those of us working in opposition to the current plan have found that very few people even in the architecture and planning community know where the memorial will be located and how big it will be. More amazingly is to find that in all the years I have followed and participated in the process, I have yet to hear anyone - even among the sponsor or the review agencies - state outright and with firm conviction that this is a good and memorable design or that it enhances the Mall site. On four different issues the federal and local agencies charged with oversight have made questionable decisions that have resulted in the current plan. First, the most important key to the controversy is the central Mall site and the Commission of Fine Arts' pivotal role in choosing it. If the site were anywhere other than in the middle of the Mall, there would probably be little or no opposition, so this is particularly significant. Originally the memorial's sponsor enthusiastically selected a site at the east end of Constitution Gardens [slide-VIEW] and that location was subsequently approved by the National Capital Planning Commission. However, the Commission of Fine Arts and its Chairman J. Carter Brown, refused to approve that location, saying it was "not prominent enough". Within a month, a new site - the current one on the center panel of the Mall -- was proposed and then quickly approved by both reviewing agencies. Although there was considerable Congressional, media, and public opposition to locating a war memorial between the Lincoln and Washington monuments, the commissions have so far refused to reconsider their extraordinary and secretive site choice, which never has been clearly explained or openly debated. Second, the current design is not the design that won the juried design competition in 1996. It is one that was devised later and secretly by the ABMC and its architect. After the federal review agencies rejected Friedrich St. Florian's competition-winning design in 1997, instead of starting over with a new competition or choosing another of the 400+ design submissions, the ABMC simply asked St. Florian to work up a new design. He then decided to visit the ABMC cemeteries and battle monuments in Europe (he told me this was his plan in 1997) and, evidently, he found his inspiration there. The design phase thus moved the WWII Memorial from a public to a purely private process. Third, the review agencies began oversight but then dropped it. Both the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission made recommendations in 1997 and again in 1998 that the design concept should be in keeping with the park-like setting and should keep open pedestrian access and the axial vistas through the crucial central panel of the Mall. Instead, in 1999 both agencies, for reasons not clearly stated, dropped their objections and approved the current design. Fourth, the National Park Service ignored its own National Register designation of the Rainbow Pool as an integral part of the Lincoln Memorial site. A 1998 National Park Service Environmental Assessment of the site concluded that the memorial would have an "adverse impact" on the Mall, a finding that was corroborated by local and federal preservation agencies. Each agency has reported that any adverse effects will be "mitigated" with a joint finding known as a Memorandum of Agreement. Such a finding postponed until after final approval would, of course, require no changes to the site or design concept and so renders the law ineffectual. The Park Service's defense of this closing off of the Mall is a novel one - to keep pedestrians from walking on the coping of the Reflecting Pool. This is what I have dubbed the "WWII memorial as jersey barrier" approach to memorial building. Next: The process has failed ... |
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