You know what I don't like, readers?
"Eisenhowers want memorial redesigned" by Brett Zongker Associated Press / January 10, 2012
WASHINGTON—President Dwight D. Eisenhower's family wants a memorial in the nation's capital redesigned, saying the current plans overemphasize his humble Kansas roots and neglect his accomplishments in World War II and the White House.
Architect Frank Gehry has proposed a memorial park framed by large metal tapestries with images of Eisenhower's boyhood home in Abilene, Kan. In the park, a statue of "Ike" as a boy would seem to marvel at what would become of his life, leading the Allied forces and becoming president. From the White House, he integrated schools and the military, and created NASA and interstate highways. Additional sculpture elements would depict Eisenhower as general and president.
Gehry's idea echoed Eisenhower's speech when he returned to Kansas after the war and spoke of a "barefoot boy" who achieved fame in Europe. He came home "to say the proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene."
Anne Eisenhower, one of the president's granddaughters, sent a formal objection to National Capital Planning Commission on Tuesday on behalf of the family. Still, she noted Gehry is a talented architect.
"What one has to say is he's missed the message here," she told The Associated Press. "The mandate is to honor Eisenhower, and that is not being done in this current design. Or, shall we say, it is being done in such a small scale in relation to the memorial that it is dwarfed."
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Images of Eisenhower as a general addressing troops before D-Day and as president studying the globe would be represented in stone in "heroic scale," said Daniel Feil, the project's executive architect. With all the attention on Gehry's tapestries, some failed to see other aspects of the memorial, he said.
Feil said he does not expect to make any major changes to Gehry's design.
The memorial commission said David Eisenhower, the president's grandson who previously sat on the commission, never voted against any of the design proposals or voiced objections. He resigned from the group in December.
"In terms of the family, it's very hard in a sense to understand where all of it is coming from," Feil said.
Gehry has said he wants to make sure the Eisenhower family approves the design, but he has dismissed the idea of using a traditional statue, saying all the great sculptors are long gone.
Gehry's design follows the trend of other memorials honoring President Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II veterans and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Those memorials are broad spaces with many elements to engage visitors.
Susan Eisenhower, another granddaughter, said "Ike" is simply the wrong figure to memorialize with an avant-garde approach. He was a traditionalist and bewildered by modern art, she said.
That is where my printed, January 12(?) Globe ended it.
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