Delay sought on Gehry's Eisenhower memorial

Opposition to the proposed memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington is growing. The House Subcomittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands announced Monday that it will hold an oversight hearing March 20 on the Eisenhower Memorial. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked the National Capital Planning Commission to postpone any vote on the design by Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry for at least 120 days.

The memorial design has been criticized on a number of grounds by individuals ranging from architect and theorist Leon Krier, to President Eisenhower's descendants, to the National Civic Art Society. 

"As currently designed it doesn't reflect the President and General Eisenhower, so we are just looking to see if this is a good use of federal money and oversight in general," Crystal Feldman, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee on parks, forests, and public lands, was quoted as saying by the Washington Examiner. The subcommittee has jurisdiction because the memorial would be on park property next to the National Mall.

Feldman said the subcommittee will ask for testimony from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, which chose Gehry's design; from the National Capital Planning Commission; and from Eisenhower family members,who have objected especially to the depiction of Eisenhower as a barefoot boy from Kansas—something they see as far removed from his service as supreme commander of Allied Forces during World War II and his two terms as president.

Some of the most concerted opposition has come from the National Civic Art Society, which has examined the minutes of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission and expressed doubts about whether Gehry was properly selected. There were only 44 entries in the design competition, an unusually small number for a high-profile memorial in the nation's captal.

The minutes show that Commission Chairman Rocco C. Siciliano "expressed his thoughts about the kind of architect represented by Frank Gehry" at the Commission's very first meeting, in April 26, 2001, years before the design competition was organized. 

Gehry was selected as the winner in March 2009. But the minutes of Commission meetings from July 2007  to March 2009 weren't approved by the Commission until March 2010 because a quorum had been lacking in the 2007-2009 meetings. If there was no quorum, suggests Eric Wind, secretary and former chairman of the National Civic Art Society, this casts doubt on whether Gehry was approved in the required manner.

"It should be reopened," Wind said of the memorial competition. "There's precedent for doing this." Two designs for a memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt were scrapped in the decades before a Roosevelt memorial was built. "It's not too late to go back to the drawing board," Wind said.

Sessions of the subcommittee on parks, forests, and public lands are usually recorded and put on line by the subcommittee. It's also possible that the March 20 hearing will be broadcast by C-SPAN or another source. 

Rep. Issa's letters to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission and the National Capital Planning Commission can be downloaded below.

For more in-depth coverage: 

• Subscribe to Better! Cities & Towns to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.

• See the January-February 2012 issue of Better! Cities & Towns. Topics: Value capture and transit, Social networks aid downtown, Live smaller, Rentals are market key, Streetcar inspiration, Box building, Civilizing suburbs, Alley houses, Sprawl repair, Healthy communities, Funding for infrastructure, Chicago River reversal.

• Get New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.

• See the December 2011 issue of New Urban News. Wall Street and urbanism, streets to plazas, Sustainable Communities grants, Choice Neighborhoods, TIGER grants, buyers prefer smart growth, protecting historic buildings, public health and planning, redevelopment in Georgia, Ecovillages, parklets.

• See the October-November 2011 issue of New Urban News. Topics: HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods; Parking reform, transit-oriented parking policy, Obama vs. Congress, West Virginia town revitalizes, suburb remakes its center, ecological dividend, cul-de-sac makeover, thoroughfare manual, and much more.

• Get SmartCode Version 9 and Manual, the code book that is having the most impact on zoning reform nationwide, with expert commentary by Andres Duany.

• See the December 2011 issue of New Urban News. Wall Street and urbanism, streets to plazas, Sustainable Communities grants, Choice Neighborhoods, TIGER grants, buyers prefer smart growth, protecting historic buildings, public health and planning, redevelopment in Georgia, Ecovillages, parklets.

• See the October-November 2011 issue of New Urban News. Topics: HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods; Parking reform, transit-oriented parking policy, Obama vs. Congress, West Virginia town revitalizes, suburb remakes its center, ecological dividend, cul-de-sac makeover, thoroughfare manual, and much more.