Posted on 01/10/2012 12:50:46 PM PST by mojito
...The present Eisenhower Memorial design, by postmodernist Frank Gehry, has virtually nothing to do with the Dwight David Eisenhower of history. Plans call for Ike to be memorialized in sculpture as a barefoot farmboy on the Great Plains: not the great wartime leader; not the soldier-diplomat; not the chief executive of the United States who presided over eight years of peace and prosperity. The Gehry conceit seems both obvious and entirely in tune with the postmodern deconstruction of history: There are no great men; there are no great virtues; there is no great striving; nor is there great accomplishment or great service to others. No one, visiting the Eisenhower Memorial as designed by Frank Gehry, would have the slightest reason to grasp the truth of the man himself....
None of it is conveyed by the other elements in the Gehry design: 80-foot-tall, nondescript cylindrical posts (they can’t even be properly described as pillars) holding up perforated metal “tapestries,” creating what Gehry himself once called a “theater for cars.” But what does a “theater for cars,” or any other kind of postmodernist knock-off of a Fifties drive-in, have to do with creating a memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander who planned the invasion of Normandy, the president who ended the Korean War and who proposed “Open Skies” as a means to lower the temperature of the Cold War?
Nothing. And that, one is forced to conclude, is the idea....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I have to say I LOVE his buildings. They are wonderful and magical. His Disney Music Center in L.A. is so much fun and the buildings you posted are “Through the Looking Glass” works of art. But I would NEVER have thought of Gehry to design a memorial for someone as grounded to Earth as Eisenhower.
The statue of the farmboy does have potential. Perhaps at one end of the square. In the middle do up a bronze set of statues that re-creates that photo of him talking to the airborne troops just before D-day, and then at the other end a memorial of him as President. Maybe with something that captures the Interstate Highway system... a huge part of his legacy.
An a little more Greco-Roman and lot less post-modern. Eisenhower was a lot of things. Post-modern wasn’t one of them.
Kiddo, they may look nice but you would do well not to own or build on of his designs.
His designs are almost unbuildable.
Often this limitation is not apparent during pricing of the materials and risks. Sure, we contractors see the most obvious of the difficult execution challanges but we also rely upon the designer maintaining a certain amount of design integrety and often his details have terrible defective combinations that are not always apparant in estimating. Architects like him do not make sure that the architectural and engineering detailing turn the overall exotic design into actual executable details without flaws.
I remember when the Hyatt Regency Skywalks collapsed one or the Forensic analysts, a world class designer himself, said that the designers had wanted a “Gee Whiz” detail — where the visitor walked in, looked up, and said Gee Whiz, how does that stay up there. He explained that the answer to that question is, “often, it can’t.”
On these projects, you might have 32 months of concept and design, 32 days of estimating and bidding, and 32 months of construction. The amount of time that the prospective contractors have to understand and price a building is very limited. People that I know that have worked on these say that the constructability flaws are so complex and overwhelming they will never attempt to work on one again.
I remember one guy on a project of his said that his roof design on the project was, after full modeling, conflict resolution, remedial work and fine tuning, still unable to be built without leaking following the contract documents only if it never snowed.
I know you're right, those buildings are wilding impractical and sometimes non-functional, but my comment was just concerning appearance. I think they're so amazing.
Even though I love the Disney Music Center, it took them forever to get the sound and ecoustic problems worked out...which is pretty much the main purpose of a "music center".
Also, the highly polished mirror finish of the outside caused an overwhelming blinding reflection of the setting sun into the offices and expensive condos that surround the area. People were being hit by blinding laser walls certain hours of the day. Workers had to scale the building and buff down the entire surface by hand till it became non-reflective.
I know David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower and adult grandchildren are still around somewhere.
What can THEY be thinking if they believe this non-inspiring visual abortion is a proper design to memorialize General Ike for ages to come?
Leni
My understanding is that the family intensely dislikes this design and has been trying to prevent it from being built.
I hope the architect acceeds to the family's wishes. However, his unchanged design still popping up in the news shows he remains tone-deaf both to family antipathy and to generally-negative public sentiment.
A real "New Age" anti-military, anti-social jerk.
Leni
You are spot on! Postmodern architectal crap too...
Notice that they didn’t give the Martin L. King memorial the post modern treatment.
He got the Rushmore-esque style. If amyone would represent modern Sixties artzy-fartzy era it would have been King
His woek is striking as are many done by other cutting edge designers. Most of these type of designers rarely follow the project through to completion and carefully assure its success. Frank Lloyd Wright tried, but even he often failed to make sure there were real materials, means and methods to turn the design into a lasting structure. Falling Water has a huge endowment largely used to keep it from leaking like a rotten structure by repeated rework.
There are designers with incredible vision that have seemed to follow the complete path of execution — Fay Jones is my favorite, but Jones was not normally doing commercial buildings.
Uh, oh, you just took one step farther than I’m capable of following, architecturally speaking. I was with ya up to the Fay Jones reference and then I had to peel off and watch your car drive away.
Okay, I just did a Fay Jones search and...Wow. You are totally right. What an extraordinary body of work. I sent for a bio and coffee table book of his buildings.
I have sat in Thornecrown Chapel, with another fellow I took to visit it, when there was no one there but the two of us. It was like atanding in an old world chathdral — blissful.
I have a fellow that used to work for me who is in his late fifties. He has a degree in architecture from Arkansas and knew Jones as his pupil and then post graduation and in practice. He has shared some great stories with me about the gentleman.
There is a 90 minute PBS special that is shown about Jones and covers his residential commissions as well as chapels and public buildings. But if you are ever near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, be sure to stop at Thorncrowne Chapel.
I will add another comment in freepmail.
The Thornecrown Chapel blew me away.
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