June 2, 2009
Dear Coalition Friends,
At its monthly meeting this Thursday, June 4, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) will review two projects intended for the National Mall, the proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial Visitors Center and the National Park Service's wayfinding and sign program for its portions of the Mall.
If you wish to testify, you must sign up with NCPC by noon on Wednesday, June 3, by calling 202-482-7200. Learn more about the projects and read the Executive Director's Recommendations for both here.
The Vietnam Visitors Center project has been dormant since late 2007. In recent weeks, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund has made public a revised design for this "underground" project to be located just north of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall. The revised concept reduces some of the project's intrusive elements but still is far from meeting the design guidelines set out by the federal review agencies in 2007, as pointed out in the NCPC report. You can read our 2007 UPDATE discussion here.
Also worth a read on this is the blog GreaterGreaterWashington, which provides an overview of the visitors center history and issues: Vietnam Visitors Center: How do you make a building invisible?
Regarding signage, anyone who encounters the confusing, outdated multiplicity of signs on the National Mall should be grateful to see the National Park Service taking up a signage program. This program is funded by NPS's Centennial Initiative and the NPS's fundraising partner, the Trust for the National Mall.
It appears that the tall wayfinding pylons will identify attractions on and off the Mall to help orient visitors to major destinations.
The new NPS map kiosks, while much needed, use NPS's national UniGuide map system for national parks and identify the National Mall by NPS's administrative unit "National Mall & Memorial Parks" and show the Mall park area (colored in green) to include only NPS's area of jurisdiction but not the White House or Capitol.
The unanswered question -- for Congress? NCPC? NPS? -- is why there is no unified system of signage based in the National Mall's value as a nationally significant place instead of a set of administrative jurisdictions. There are different signage systems for the Smithsonian museums, DC's Department of Transportation, and the Architect of the Capitol, among others. Our earlier UPDATE on this matter can be read here. As the NCPC Executive Director's Report notes on page 3, "The Smithsonian Institution has installed museum identification signs as well as signs (with maps of a portion of the National Mall)... [our emphasis] The Architect of the Capitol has installed signs that provide maps and identification of buildings in the U.S. Capitol complex" [but not the rest of the Mall].
Back to the top
| 
