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So the Eisenhower Memorial Commission and the General Services Administration have picked Frank Gehry to design a memorial to be erected in Washington honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gehry is surely the most famous working American architect today. That fame is based on designs for fanciful, billowing metallic structures that create a lot of glare and heat. The last time Gehry was involved in a major project in D.C., things didn't go so well. Here's hoping Gehry's design for the Eisenhower Memorial manages to create only the good kind of heat.
Frank Gehry to Design Eisenhower Memorial
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"...The commission has asked for a landscaped civic plaza, that would serve two roles with both memorial and open space. "
So, like Freedom Plaza improved by huge metal skateboard ramps?
Gehry is Canadian.
I'm pretty sure he has dual citizenship.
I'll defer to you on that, Sommer.
Wikipedia: "Gehry holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada."
well, can't get much more authoritative than that!
Canadians are Americans, too. You know, in the same way Germans are European.
As a Canadian, I'm well aware. I don't believe that was the intent of Sommer's comment, though. Nevertheless, the great Wikipedia has spoken.
If this is an April Fools joke, it's mean, because I'm about to cry I'm so happy.
I wonder if if will have a Coffee Shop. This city really needs one.
bilbao effect anyone?
Bilbao was a previously economically depressed industrial city that saw little tourism; hard to see it being similar to DC.
Gehry to me seems a bizarre choice for a DC memorial.
GGW, BDC, Richard Layman, and all the historic preservation people are all having violent seizures right about now.
They need to put an Apple Store in the lobby and locate this in Georgetown.
Not a fan of Gehry - I hope he comes up with something a little more traditional and appropriate. Also, when are we going to move away from the sprawling, horizontal memorial plaza w/disparate elements model (Korea, WWII, Navy, FDR, 9/11 Pentagon), and get back to a strong vertical concept?
while the city has no space for a sprawling memorial, the STRONG VERTICAL CONCEPT isn't so appropriate for this guy. his memorial structure/symbol should be analogous to his legacy, such as the father of our country has a virile phallus, and the great classicist is forever enthroned in a roman temple... but what is eisenhower best known for?
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he's crap. and not just because his design is some hackneyed attempt at being avant garde, but also because he is a supremely lazy designer and a one-trick pony. this blows.
I vote we switch this proposed Eisenhower memorial to a McCarthyism memorial. That way we can all fondly recall the paranoid Republican witch-hunting of the 1950s.[sigh]
Oh maybe we get a colorful one like the biodiversity museum currently under construction in Panama. That should piss a few off unless they use DC authorized colors..
Rumor has it that the design was a based on a crumbled piece of paper, he drew that out and got paid a bundle. ART!
http://www.biomuseopanama.org/en/building/zoom/ph_bui_model_4.html
http://www.biomuseopanama.org/en/building/index.html
GAH, this guy!!! Most. Overrated. Architect. Ever.