Posted on 03/20/2012 11:58:56 PM PDT by iowamark
Susan Eisenhower tells Congressional hearing that her grandfather wouldn't understand proposed memorial
At a Capitol Hill hearing on the proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial on Tuesday, Susan Eisenhower, the 34th president's granddaughter, recommended designers of the space go back to the drawing board.
She argued that the current design—which features a depiction of Eisenhower as a boy flanked by stone blocks—has more in common with the socialist realist memorials of the Soviet Union and Moaist China than current U.S. monuments to great American presidents.
"A re-design is the only way to make this process acceptable," Susan Eisenhower told lawmakers. "Ike would've wanted something less dramatic."
The current design by California architect Frank Gehry calls for two bas-relief pictures of Eisenhower as Supreme Commander in World War II Europe and another of him as President etched into large stone blocks on either side of a life-size statue depicting Ike as a young man.
Multiple woven stainless steel "tapestries" portraying the Kansas plains where Eisenhower grew up would surround the memorial in front of the Department of Education.
But the late president's granddaughter slammed the design, saying the metal works, pillars and accents looked like everything from nuclear missile silos to Nazi concentration camp fences.
"They are inappropriate in this space and do nothing but serve as an expensive and unnecessary backdrop to this flawed concept," she said regarding the steel tapestries.
Susan Eisenhower also criticized the decision to depict a young Ike as a "barefoot boy from Kansas" rather than as the general who helped liberate Europe from the Nazis.
"Great memorials make simple statements," she told lawmakers. "Eisenhower's professional assignments carried none of the romantic notion that is embodied in the current memorial concept and design. The man we celebrate is not a dreamy boy, but a real man who faced unthinkable choices."
Frank Gehry, the memorial's designer, submitted a letter indicating that he is willing to work with the Eisenhower family to make appropriate changes to the memorial's design.
Final approval of the design falls on the bipartisan memorial commission which originally scheduled construction to start in 2012. National Monuments Foundation president Rodney Cook, Jr., suggested that re-evaluating the Eisenhower memorial's design would push the project back by at least another two years and add another $20 million to the cost of the project.
I AGREE! The Liberal Progressive rewrite history folks embedded in the Govt are trying to minimize his contributions to the USA.
Forgot to add,,,,,, from what I saw of the design on the news, it looks like an Occupy Camp, awaiting the Socialists and Rats.
If you go to DC and stop by the Roosevelt Memorial....over near the Jefferson Memorial....you kind of get an impression of lousy memorial planning. I would refer to the Roosevelt Memorial as more of a ‘gardens’ than a memorial. They attempted to build up three layers of history, so you’d walk through and feel three periods of Roosevelt.
When you go to the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorial...there is this one-simple feeling as you enter. With Roosevelt....you end up thinking there are three separate characters in one, which doesn’t make any sense.
With the Ike situation....I’d suggest two statues facing each other....Ike in a Army uniform....leading the country against the Nazis. This statue would face a second Ike statue....him in a plain black suit...leading America into economic prosperity in the 1950s.
In the America I grew up in, every town had a nice little memorial for the vets of each war. Now, we have giant monstrosities in DC for us to worship. It's sick.
The trend in modern era memorials is to tell the "story" the organizers, backers and "artist" (in this case an architect) want to tell rather than honor the man himself.
Not only do these "book on the wall" style memorials become overly large, cumbersome and disjointed, like everything else today, the simple task of honoring a great man is seen as a chance by various interests to piggyback their agenda on to the design of the memorial to further their own goals - usually social and political.
Recall what happened at the Smithsonian with the display of the Enola Gay. It was hijacked by one-worlders and revisionist historians in an attempt to use it to tell their politically correct version of the events surrounding the use of atomic bombs to end WWII in the Pacific.
THAT in itself is more than most presidents ever do for our nation.
I just heard on FNC that the architect is a self described atheist and socialist.
IMO (slightly sarcastic) the WWII Ike should be portrayed standing between Montgomery and Patton, hold them both at arm’s length and keeping them away from each other.
Anyway, that was Ike’s main job as SHAEF, keeping the Allies from fighting each other.
I agree —question is will the Socialists now controlling Washington D.C. even care what the family of “Ike” have to say? I wager the family will be cast aside by those who serve the LIE.Sadly I think “Ike” played a role in the national persecution of one of the great watchmen Senator McCarthy who tried to lead the charge against this evil.But I agree a redesign is called for.
This reminds me of the King Memorial. His statue is white, he looks Chinese, the quote on the back is wrong - stupid all around. This Ike memorial design sounds just as stupid.
Except the King family extorted over $800K for the “quotes” on the statue. Nice work when you can get it. At least Ike’s family appears to be worried more about the man than making an easy buck.
The King family would sell their own mother’s body for a few bucks (for their dad they’d ask a bit more). Whatever else Dr. Martin did, he raised a bunch of greedy children.
Ike’s family has the class that the King family lacks. Can’t change the fact that King’s statue is white and looks chinese.
Agree. Can’t help but think the $800K that went to the Kings forced them to go to the Chinese low bidder and they ended up with a white Mao instead of a Martin.
Frank Gehry builds modernist monstrosities like the LA Disney Hall and the “art” museum in Bilbao, Spain.
No thanks.
Thanks for posting the link. It does look like crap.
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