Frank Gehry and the Eisenhower Monument debated in Congress

The future of a planned memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington was debated on Tuesday with lawmakers questioning the project’s design and funding. A House panel hosted a hearing on the 14-year-old project, which has secured a site for the memorial at the foot of Capitol Hill near the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

For more than a year, the memorial’s design, by architect Frank Gehry has been criticized by some for its new approach to memorial architecture and defended by others for its innovative approach.

 
 

Eisenhower Memorial Commission

A rendering of the proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial

Gehry has proposed a memorial park for Eisenhower with statues of the President and World War II hero. The park would be framed by large, metal tapestries depicting images of Ike’s boyhood home in Kansas. The imagery would be held up by 80-foot-tall columns.

 

The most controversial element was a statue of the young Eisenhower sitting on a low stone wall, a characterization inspired by a photograph of him at that age and by a homecoming speech he made after the war in which he recalled his days as a “barefoot boy.”

• Go to FRANK GEHRY'S original presentation to the NCPC. I'm unable to display it at

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGcR2s6KW9c

Members of the Eisenhower family and others objected to the memorial as an inadequate representation of the former president’s significant achievements. In response, Gehry changed the design, replacing the child Eisenhower with a 20-year-old West Point cadet Eisenhower, and changing depictions of two famous photographs into statues instead of bas-reliefs. But family members still expressed concerns that the design was costly, undignified and not sufficiently durable.

“It is time to go back to the drawing board,” Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter, said at the hearing. “The Gehry design is, regretfully, unworkable.” 

Brig. Gen. Carl W. Reddel, executive director of the memorial commission, said that about $9 million had been spent on the design process so far and that the commission remained committed to moving forward.

On Friday the American Institute of Architects submitted a letter to the subcommittee opposing the Bishop bill, saying it would negate the selection process.

“It is nothing more than an effort to intimidate the innovative thinking for which our profession is recognized,” said Robert Ivy, the association’s chief executive. 

Not all members of Congress are as opposed to the project. 

“I sort of like the design we have now,” Representative Rush D. Holt Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, said at the hearing. “It does seem to do what I would want done for the memory of General President Eisenhower. So I wonder if there aren’t some more changes possible that can make it more suitable to everyone.”

Mr. Holt also said those involved should keep in mind that other memorials have had similar growing pains. “I keep going back to fierce objections to the Vietnam Memorial,” he said. “It is now highly regarded and a place of reverence. So I think maybe there’s a lesson there.” 

In response, Justin Shubow, the president and chairman of the National Civic Art Society, who spoke on Tuesday, called the design “not salvageable.”

“What then are the universal requirements of a monument?” Mr. Shubow asked at the hearing. “Monuments are civic art that cause us to solemnly reflect on who we are and what we value. They are heroic-sized, timeless and possess grandeur. They present an ideal we aspire to rather than warts-and-all reality.”

Representative McClintock said the Gehry design was doomed and unworthy of the Mall. “This memorial is likely never to be completed in its current form because it will never be funded in its current form,” he said. “If I were to place pictures next to it of the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument and ask, ‘Which thing doesn’t belong with the others?’ the answer is self-evident — which I think speaks volumes for how inappropriate it is.” 

As chairman of a House oversight committee, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, has been reviewing the memorial competition and the commission’s spending.

“The memorial should be built and must be built, but it also has to be built for the next 100 years or more,” Representative Issa said at the hearing. “This memorial cannot be built if it is inconsistent with the views of the people who knew our commander in chief as well as his family.”

The project’s cost was estimated at $142 million and paid for with federal funds and private fundraising.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 20, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Eisenhower Memorial In Criticism Barrage.