October 12, 2006
Air Force Memorial Dedicated this Weekend
Been wondering what that enormous sculpture erected on a hill near the
Pentagon -- the one that looks like "wavy future grass," or "where
Wolverine is buried," according to friends of ours -- is, exactly?
Well, you can get your chance to find out this weekend at the
dedication services taking place for what is the area's first Air Force memorial.
Dedication services will be taking place all weekend long, starting with a ceremony at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, which the general public can view from the South Pentagon Parking Lot. Other festivities will continue throughout the weekend, including a performance by country! superstar! Lee Ann Womack; the U.S. Air Force Drill Team; and F-16s flying overhead.
More information about the events can be found here, and Metro has kindly posted transportation info here.
As for the memorial itself, which is designed by James Freed and shoots nearly 300 feet up in the sky -- well, we're not architecture experts, but we did solicit the opinions of those better versed, better looking, and generally smarter than us for their thoughts about the memorial. DCist Jeff had this to say:
I have no affinity for zooty, contemporary art or architecture, but I rather like the AF memorial. I think it gives exactly the impression that the AF wants. When I saw it this weekend, it reminded me of the white smoke streams left behind planes when they split formation (jets peeling away from each other at ridiculous speeds, sound shrieking, sort of an awe-inducing experience). With that thought in mind, I thought it nailed it pretty well.However, local blogger the Nabob voiced his concerns this past June about the specific location of the memorial:
...As a whole, the project bothers me. The exact flight path of Flight 77 on September 11th will probably never be mapped, based on the plane’s angle at impact there is a good chance that it flew either directly over or very close to where this monument is being built. In fact, that same hill between the Navy Annex and Citgo is where the media and curious onlookers gathered for the best vantage of the fire and destruction. On the heavy traffic mornings when we creep along Route 27, the highway between the Memorial and the Pentagon, I can’t help but to consider the people who were in a similar situation when 77 thundered by at over 500 mph 30 feet above their cars...And without dwelling too long on theories of space-time and dimensional continuity, I feel that having a large, essentially claw-like structure flaring 270 from the ground disrupts this venerated airspace.
Have you seen the memorial? (Considering that it's so effing huge you can see it practically anywhere in D.C., we're guessing yes.) What are your thoughts?
Computer-generated photo from airforcememorial.org
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Since moving to the Columbia Pike two years ago, this is the first new structure I've seen completed. What the f*** is up with the rest of the Columbia Pike Initiative? Does it take the military to get things done? As for the monument, I kind of like it. Curious to know what's happening to buildings next door. Are they coming down or what?
Does everything have to have a 9/11 angle? Are we going to map out the routes of all the planes and make sure nothing is ever built on that land? Cmon, this is just ridiculous.
As for the memorial, I think it looks nice from a distance, but is kind of odd up-close (from the highway). Although, I haven't gone by there since the completion.
The blogger that you link to who is concerned that it disrupts revered air space...give me a freaking break. Based on the path of all four planes on 9/11 a quarter of the air space on the East Coast could be considered revered air space. Don't get me wrong, I think we should memoralize Sept. 11 and revere its significance, but come on already, enough is enough when you start questioning the placement of the air force memorial.
I thought they were building one of those worm hole thingies from Contact. I just hope they didn't invite crazy-eyes blonde dude to the ceremony.
I read that they are going to tear down the Navy Annex to extend Arlington Cemetery.
I can't really seperate what is probably great design from the really jarring impact it has on that area. I pass it regularly, and shake my head each time. Which is a shame, for this Air Force kid.
i dont like how all the dead people are taking up precious condo and retail space. That cemetary needs to build up not out! i'll take a plot on level 6
As a result of my debilitating fear of spiders, I am not a fan.
i think it's great. i like seeing as i drive down 395. it's very cool and modern.
Not a Fan. It's very jarring and I half expected it to have decommissioned jets on top of the 'pillars'. I can also see it from my apartment in ADAMS MORGAN - that shows how incongruous the memorial is. The WWII memorial did it right - it blended into an already congested area while still bringing a revered but subtle air to it. This does exactly the opposite.
Logistically, how are people supposed to get to the memorial? I used to live in PC so I know how easy it would be to walk there, but most tourists will not, and I have yet to see any visitor parking in that area.
Um the WWII memorial (although I think it looks okay) is pretty much not liked by anyone. And there are more than a few people that find the socialistic iconography a bit unsettling. I can't see the AF memorial from my house in Petworth, but that's not surprising. Frankly though, we should all look to Amish and just bulldoze those things that have a painful past and move on. Memorials are so much nationalistic masturbation, no?
Are all the jets flying over my office building in Arlington today practicing for the dedication ceremony?
we live up the hill on one of the few streets that have access to the area. it's a cool looking memorial, & the design is pretty intriguing. it has been interesting to watch it's progress everyday. last night the bright lights shooting up from the ground illuminated the cool looking clouds over it (i had the desire to go home & build a mashed potato tower & i couldn't get this little tune of 5 notes out of my head!). but be forewarned: THERE IS NO PARKING IN THAT AREA. you can take metro to the pentagon stop, then stroll up the hill to see it. but don't expect to use the bathroom in a visitor's center, or buy trinkets in a gift shop. the hillside it sits on is ideal, just as long as you drive past it & don't stop to get out. and as the signs around it remind you, it's on part of a 'military installation' so no photography near it. it's also so close to the pentagon that traffic around it is about to become a nightmare. i can't imagine it becoming a tourist destination such as the iwo jima memorial, or arlington cemetary for that matter. it seems kind of a confusing memorial because it is so close to the actual flight path of the crashed plane: is it for the air force, or is it for the victims? i know there's a memorial being constructed for the victims at the rebuilt side of the pentagon, but again, no photography. and you better make sure you're carrying id. one other tip: the gas station between the new monument & the pentagon is for military use only. there are a few gas stations up columbia pike.
Yes, the Thunderbirds are practicing today for the weekend's flyover. Tomorrow at 11:15AM there's supposed to be more flyover practice with a parade of 14 different historic aircraft.
That's a memorial!? I honestly thought those were construction cranes. I can see them from my apartment several miles away. Whatever the merits of the design, they're wiped away by a complete failure to scale the memorial correctly.
And re: the WWII memorial, I think the only people that dislike the memorial are snooty architecture journalists that were the same type who called the Jefferson Memorial hopelessly anachronistic (as if a building, which is intended to be timeless, can only be judged within the context of the narrow historical reference of its build date and the fickle tastes of the inked-stained clergy). And besides, I thought the criticism was that the architecture was facist, not socialist.
Although I do agree with the inclination not to preserve things with painful pasts. Too many "relics" of 9/11 are being fetishized.
DC1974 mentions the socialistic iconography of the WWII memorial. The Air Force memorial does nothing but scream dictatorial regime. It's out of scale with it's surroundings. It looks like a revolutionary sculpture commissioned by Mr. S. Hussein.
DC1974:
Way to rage against the man with pointless West Coast liberal post-modern edgy-ness. Should we tear down the Iwo Gima statue and thrown up a Hiroshima and Nagasaki guilt memorial? Replace the Washington monument with something less phallic and more feminine and vaginal shaped? Tear down the U.S. Mint and put up a Palestinian Resistence Museum right next to the Holocaust Museum?
I don't think so. History is relevant, and it would be sheer idiocy to try to forget the seminal event of the 20th century. Those who forget history are blah blah blah.....
Another lame suburbian memorial review.
Eh. I think politics are shading the evaluations more than the design. Any Air Force memorial is almost certainly going to draw our attention to the sky. This one certainly does (I just wish it would do it elsewhere, or a bit smaller - the "Flight" sculpture out at the Dulles branch of the Air & Space Museum is fantastic, accomplishing just that).
As to the WWII Memorial, I was adamantly against it because of the huge impact it had on the Mall, bisecting it. But I'll have to say, they did a damn good job of it, if it had to be done.
And yeah, planes all over today - five fighter formations just a little while ago. Will try to head out for some pictures, tomorrow.
Right, Stating the Obvious. Because there are only always two possible choices for EVERYTHING. And, then, only diametrically opposed opposites.
And it's Iwo JIMA.
I must have watched/read/played one too many horror films but this thing looks like the first steps of a really big nasty creature trying to pull itself out of the ground. I for one want to be out of town when it succeeds...
Is it just my imagination or does it seem like most comment threads on DCist end up in Nerds vs. Jocks rumble?
Nerds!!
To say that the World War II memorial is "pretty much not liked by anyone" is such a gross overstatement of reality that it's basically just false. The memorial is not much liked by professional or amateur architecture critics, or by fans of simplicity and lack of clutter on the Mall, and there are definitely more than a few of those people here in the DC area.
But have you ever visited the Memorial? It's always swarming with people, and as they wander among the columns looking for their state, or the theaters where there relatives fought and/or died, they don't seem to be griping about "socialistic" design. I'm not a big fan of the design, personally, but I think the general consensus among WWII veterans, their families, and the tourists that visit the memorial every day is that it's exactly what they want to see in a memorial, and they love it.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that the "consensus" of a rarefied group of elites doesn't really qualify as consensus at all.
FYI, there will be parking at the memorial. 10 spots or so of the employee parking lot will be designated memorial visitor parking. You can also park at or next to the Sheraton National. And I'm pretty sure photography will be allowed of the memorial. Hell, I was in front of the Navy Annex on 9/11 this year taking pictures of the lights on the Pentagon as were tons of other people and no one cared. No problems unless you leave the memorial area and start taking pictures of the building itself-- and why would you, it's ugly.
It looks like a huge metallic spider emerging from the ground, ready to terrorize the streets of DC, but got stuck on some piping and died. Poor ghastly dead metallic spider. Poor metropolitan residents, who have to suffer viewing it on a daily basis.
Last night I noticed that it has a really annoying bright flashing red light on it too. I understand the need for the light, but it's so much brighter and flashes faster than the Washington Monument's two evil eyes.
They look like mammoth elephant tusks...
Regarding 9/11 flight plans, perhaps that is exactly the point. The memorial is a "tank trap for airplanes". And it looks cool too!
By the way, everyone hated the World Trade Center towers when they went up as well.
I have spent 23 years in the Air Force and I do not like the memorial. I am offended by its proximity to the 9-11 path but understand how others might feel that is extreme. That said, I was on 27 that day -- 5 minutes before the impact. Maybe that effected me more than others, but it seems to me that a 9-11 memorial would be more appropriate there. I am also offended by its glorifiction of the service rather than its people -- see Iwo Jima for the latter. A "service" memorial should not compete with the rest of the DC skyline to glorify a particular branch of the military -- it should emphasize the quite and dedicated service and sacrifice of the men and women who have served.