Hasta La Ideas

If we’ve learned anything from the recent opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, it’s that it takes a long time and a lot of work to get a national monument up and standing in Washington DC (and even once it’s standing, all those labors and controversies don’t necessarily immediately dissipate). In a move this week to perhaps help smooth that rocky road, Frank Gehry has introduced a few changes to his Eisenhower Memorial, his first monument in the city. Having landed the commission two years ago, at which time we were told that his plans might not just change the way we think about memorials, but of Gehry’s talents as well, the architect has undergone a handful of skirmishes with the National Capital Planning Commission, having to revise his original plans several times in order to meet their exacting standards. Yesterday, Gehry met with the NCPC to introduce the idea of forging a sort of engraved tapestry onto the large pillars that make up the memorial. No word on what exactly the images will be yet, but as the Washington Post speculates, they are likely to include pieces from the former President’s life, from growing up in Kansas to commanding military forces in World War II. This being government, we’re certain the NCPC will need some time to think this new plan through (the next design review meeting is scheduled for “late 2011 or early 2012″). What’s more, on top of that, we’re assuming that the commission and the architect are still working through the revisions proposed earlier this year, which focused on trying to make the memorial block less of the view of the nearby Capitol.

Update: Looks like things didn’t go as well as Mr. Gehry might have hoped.

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Just a few weeks after the Long Beach Police Department in California made headlines across the internet (and in real life) for their policy of allowing the detainment of photographers who were taking photos of what an officer might find a subject “with no apparent esthetic value,” and continuing the long-running movement for photographer’s rights, which received some larger than usual press when Grant Smith held a protest concerning the matter in the UK last year, now the American Civil Liberties Union has gotten involved, assembling a resource on their site entitled “Know Your Rights: Photographers.” Launched just before the weekend, the site aims to lay out the facts to both picture takers and the authorities, offering reminders such as “Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances” and “When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs.” Certainly a valuable thing to look over should you be the type who wanders a bit off the beaten path when photographing, someone who enjoys a First Amendment challenge, or for an officer unclear as to the ins and outs of the legality of photography. If you fit into any of those categories, it might even be a smart bookmark to have on your phone.

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Hot off the heels of the insanely fast redesign competition for the President’s Park South and the opening of the forever controversial Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the move to spruce up Washington DC’s most visited areas continue at a healthy clip. Just before the weekend, the Trust for the National Mall launched the National Mall Design Competition. Writing that the Mall “has been loved to death” and is struggling to keep up appearances since its last major preservation effort nearly 40 years ago, the competition has put a call out for redesign plans for three sites in particular: Union Square, the Washington Monument grounds at Sylvan Theater and Constitution Gardens. Unlike the aforementioned President’s Park South competition, which seemed as though it was started and finished in around an hour and a half, the Mall project will be taking its time (pdf), blocked out in a series of stages, with potentially eight teams picked between now and December, renderings out in April of next year, and winners named in May of 2012. The budget for the restoration is currently estimated at $700 million, with half coming from donations and the other from matching federal funds. Former First Lady Laura Bush, now no stranger to landscape-centric capital campaigns after overseeing her husband’s presidential library in Texas, has signed on as the Honorary Chair to help raise the money. Here’s a list of the problems that propelled the Trust into action:

The National Mall has been loved to death.

With more than 25 million annual visitors and 3,000 annual permitted events, the National Mall is the most visited park in the NPS system.

Pierre L’Enfant, who designed the National Mall in 1791, could not have anticipated this magnitude of use. The National Mall is not equipped to withstand this level of use or engage so many visitors.

The National Mall now requires more than $400 million for critical deferred maintenance and an estimated $300 million for restoration and improvement projects.

The last time the National Mall received adequate resources was for the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. These decades of neglect have left the National Mall in need of repair.

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While all the attention, particularly this week, has been on New York’s National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the other memorial, honoring those who died that day in rural Pennsylvania aboard Flight 93, is still moving forward. Plagued with just as many issues as its counterpart to the east, between budget issues and at times very vocal movements against its design, the memorial is plugging along after finally getting authorized land from the National Park Service and breaking ground back in 2009. Still under construction and likely not to be open to the public for a number of years, the Daily American in Somerset County, where the memorial is located, filed this great report on its progress and spoke with the architect Paul Murdoch, who reportedly “visits the construction project every month or two and is pleased with how it is progressing.” Well worth the read, and remembering, as the bulk of the national attention lies eastward. Here’s a bit about the memorial’s progress:

Phases 1A and 1C of the project are under construction. That is the memorial plaza, with the arrival court, benches, a visitors shelter, parking area, the memorial wall, the entrance road and the ring road. Phase 1B is not under construction. That phase includes the visitors center and exhibits; portal walls, flight path and overlook; 40 memorial groves; walkway around the ring road; western overlook trail; parking, water, sewer and utilities. The total cost of all of phase 1 is estimated at $62 million.

Phase 2 includes the Tower of Voices. Phase 3 includes the return road and reforestation. National Park Service Superintendent Keith Newlin said because the second and third phases are still in the final design stage, he couldn’t provide specific costs for those phases.

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What fools we were to believe that, after years of contentious debate, delay after delay and turmoil of varying degree, now that the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC is finally finished and sitting in its new, permanent home, everything would be fine. Instead, the seemingly always troubled monument has continued to suffer through controversy. First, and certainly the minor issue at hand, the memorial was intended to be given a full dedication on August 28th, which was cancelled due to the closing in of Hurricane Irene. However, now that the storm has passed, it’s not entirely clear when the dedication will happen. “The official Dedication ceremony will be moved to a date yet determined in September or October,” the MLK Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation writes in a press release. “We will announce those details when we have them.” Second, and certainly the most contentious, is the issue over the inscription carved at the base of the memorial, a paraphrased version of King’s “drum major” sermon, reading “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” Critics, like the poet Maya Angelou, write that the stripped down line makes him sound like “an arrogant twit” and ignores the fact that the original “drum major” speech wasn’t boastful in the humblest sense. The Washington Post has a great recap on all the controversy surrounding said inscription, including the executive architect’s response to all of the criticism, saying there are no plans to re-do anything about the memorial and it will stay as-is.

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