Hasta La Ideas

The nation’s most famous obelisk may hold the disappointingly abstract key to (spoiler alert!) Dan Brown‘s latest conspiracy caper, but it’s always been lacking in the landscaping department. Although the Washington Monument is the defining feature of the D.C. skyline and the centerpiece of the National Mall, at ground level its vast open space remains unfinished and underutilized. Not to worry, monument fans! It’s nothing that a good old-fashioned National Ideas Competition can’t solve. Channel your waning Election Day patriotism into developing an innovative and creative idea for making the Washington Monument grounds more welcoming, educational, and effectively used by the public. That’s the challenge offered by the National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds, which is accepting entries through December 18 (register here by November 30 to participate). Anything goes, so think big—elaborate use of native plants, bold architectural statements, a mime-staffed kiosk that distributes free puppies and ice cream. A jury of historians, architects, and critics (including the monumentally astute Sara Hart) will select 25 semifinalists to translate their ideas into preliminary proposals suitable for public exhibition and then further trim the field to five finalists that will present to the competition’s steering committee. The winner will be determined next summer by a public vote.

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After what seems like endless years of seeing Prince Charles as a mean, architect-hating bad guy (and rightly so at times), there’s finally a positive story about the guy — and it even relates to architecture. The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment (which last year was being investigated for some of those aforementioned negative things and received a judge’s slap on the wrist this year as the troublesome Chelsea Barracks debate continued) will be taking over the role as lead planners for the rebuilding of Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, starting in December. According to the Guardian, while some are calling it a political move by Haitian politicians trying to win favors from the UK, the Foundation will be stepping in to not only create “a masterplan” for the city, “including homes, streets, public spaces and amenities,” but will also be training residents on how to best rebuild after an earthquake leveled nearly the whole country and killed hundreds of thousands of people earlier this year. They’ll be working in collaboration with the urban planning firm Duany Plater Zyberk on the project that will cover roughly 25 city blocks. So politically motivated or not, it’s apt to be a worthwhile endeavor. Just don’t any expect any new modernist buildings to get built. Here’s a bit from the Foundation’s statement:

“We are honoured to have been given the chance to help create a better future for Haiti after the suffering and devastation of the earthquake,” said Hank Dittmar, chief executive of the prince’s foundation. “We hope to play a small part in bringing hope and benefit to the city by maintaining its authentic character, reducing its environmental impact and helping train local people in construction skills that equip them for future employment.”

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After years of debate and miscellaneous stumbling blocks, it looked like construction on the Flight 93 Memorial in rural Pennsylvania was finally going to get underway when a groundbreaking ceremony happened early last month. But now we’ve seen some movement in the state that could potentially disrupt whatever forward momentum had finally been built. First, Pennsylvania’s governor, Edward Rendell, has announced that, should an upcoming gambling bill not pass, the state would be forced to do some heavy trimming, including cutting jobs and closing things like parks and museums. These cuts aren’t directly addressed to the Memorial, and are likely a scare tactic to force the bill through, but one can make the leap from one to the other fairly easily. In more fortunate news, Congressman Bill Shuster just gave the Memorial project two big checks at this week, one for $4 million and another for $100,000 (but that’s to build a cell phone tower near the site). Good news, except for the other story hot on its heels that a contractor has filed suit against the project, claiming it should have been selected to help build the Memorial and not the firm who was ultimately given the contract. Until that suit is settled, all construction has been brought to a halt. So will the Memorial open by September 11th of 2011 or join its neighbors in New York in seeing delay after delay?

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As if swine flu weren’t bad enough, now the unholy enemy of all who stand upright has landed on our shores. Of course, we are talking about tripping. But this time it has nothing to do with Bilbao, bridges, or Santiago Calatrava. Instead, it’s the still relatively-new High Line in Manhattan, about which Gothamist has received word that a woman has decided to sue the city for $2 million over the park’s uneven walkways, which caused her to trip, fall, and break her ankle. Before you scoff, this has apparently been a fairly typical issue, with loads of uneven paths and steps eagerly awaiting their next helpless victims. However, one could also argue that maybe if people were watching where they were walking, instead of trying to get a peek at all the naked attractive exhibitionists over at Th

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Our world is spinning because we just discovered we are right in the thick of a controversy that we had no knowledge of whatsoever (and probably neither does anyone else, which is good reason to bring up this red hot scandal). We randomly stumbled across this interview with landscape architect Olaniyi Kehinde which is entitled “How I Coined the Name Millennium Park.” The Millennium Park he’s talking about here is the one in the city of Abuja in Nigera. Being in Chicago, where the other (see: “real”) Millennium Park exists, reading that this smart aleck was claiming he’d come up with the name immediately made this writer raise his fisticuffs. That’s our park! You can’t claim “I suggested that since there was a new Millennium coming why don’t we call it Millennium Park and everybody agreed” because we already have one of those! Get your own name! But then, instead of this writer’s usual style of flying off the handle without doing any real research, we decided to lower the temper for a second and see what we could find. Turns out, the Abuja Millennium Park opened in 2003. Ours had its opening night a year later, in 2004. So are we the true thieves here? And does it matter that we started ours back in 1997? When did they start theirs? We can’t find an answer anywhere, yet we demand closure! Who is the real name swindler here? Who should rightfully be forced to change their name to Y2K Park? If you have the facts, let us know. In the interim, please read that interview with Olaniyi Kehinde because it’s really interesting, shows how landscape architects and city planners can make a difference, and it will make us feel better if you do after we’ve spent the last three hundred words picking on this one trivial detail. Thank you for your time.