Chicago’s Joe Weishaar submitted the winning design in collaboration with Sabin Howard, a NY sculptor. “Blackjack” Pershing, who commanded US forces during the war.
Advertisement
The U.S. World War I Centennial Commission unveiled the winning design Tuesday for the national World War I Memorial set to be built at Pershing Park in Washington D.C.
In 2014, Congress authorized the commission to establish a national World War I memorial. Some critics suggest a memorial would destroy the work of the park’s designer, M. Paul Friedberg. While the National Mall, where other war memorials are located, would be the preferred location, a law prohibits new construction on that expanse, Fountain said.
Fountain said the commission is planning for a $30 to $40 million budget for the memorial. While there is the Liberty Memorial honoring World War I veterans in Kansas City, Missouri, Washington needs one of its own, Cleaver said.
The service and sacrifice on such a scale must be commemorated, he said, adding it would be an injustice to not have a national memorial in Washington for them.
World War I, lasting from 1914 until Armistice Day in 1918, pitted Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire against an alliance of Britain, France, the Russian Empire, Italy and eventually, the U.S.
The raised form in the center of the site honors the veterans of the first world war by combining figurative sculpture and personal narratives of servicemen and women in a single formal expression. The memorial is of tremendous significance to her family and the nation, she told the audience at yesterday’s event. But plans to completely remake Pershing Park, which already includes a memorial to WWI (the park is named for U.S. Army General John Joseph Pershing), have proved controversial.
Advertisement
Before the vote, Commissioner Libby O’Connell praised the design, saying that it creates an urban park that memorializes the war while also addressing pragmatic issues such as access for disabled people. So far just $1 million has been raised, The Tribune reported.
