After 15 years and $40 million spent, Frank Gehry’s wildly unpopular design for the National Eisenhower Memorial is on life support. Not a shovel of dirt has been turned, Congress zeroed all construction funding, and the National Capital Planning Commission denied preliminary approval. Recently, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment voted to eliminate the proposal altogether.
On July 18, 2014, at the U.S. House Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C., the National Civic Art Society hosted a briefing to discuss the current state of the Memorial and its future prospects.
The panel concluded that the design is dead, and advocated for a new, open competition.
Speakers:
- The Hon. Bruce Cole, former Chairman of the National Endowment of the Humanities, and President Obama’s appointee to the Eisenhower Memorial Commission
- Justin Shubow, President of the National Civic Art Society
- Catesby Leigh, art and architecture critic
- Moderator: Howard Segermark, Chairman Emeritus of the National Civic Art Society
