Architects and Students Invited to Submit Designs for Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Counterproposal Competition

This spring, the National Civic Art Society (NCAS) and the Institute for Classical Architecture & Classical America (ICACA) Mid-Atlantic Chapter invites classical architects and artists to engage in a competition to design a counterproposal to Frank Gehry's design of a national monument to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The competition, which is open to any designer or team of designers who are citizens of the United States, will seek to encourage the design of appropriate, meaningful, and timeless memorials to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, five-star general of the United States Army, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe and Supreme Commander of NATO. It is the hope of the NCAS and ICACA that this competition will encourage dialogue among designers and the general public about the meaning, inspiration and dignity of designs that are suitable to commemorate a distinguished president and general.

Submissions should be designs that embody the traditions of civic art in Washington, DC and should stand in harmony with the vision of the L'Enfant Plan as well as the McMillan Commission. All submissions are due by April 15, 2011. For more information about the specifications as well the monetary awards to be bestowed upon the winners of the competition, please scroll down to the details section of this page.

Official Link

competition summary

The recent selection of a Frank Gehry design for a national monument to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and the Supreme Commander of the victorious Allied Forces in Europe in the Second World War, is deeply troubling to many Americans. Devoid of, and in defiance of, traditional aesthetic principles, the proposed design does not convey the meaning, inspiration and dignity suitable to commemorate a distinguished general and president of the United States.

Gehry's proposed basketball court-sized metal mesh screens hung between massive concrete posts over sixty feel tall would be an uncivil, brutal insult to the classical city envisioned by Pierre L'Enfant and our nation's Founders. Rather than being in harmony with Washington, the proposed monument would screen off and separate itself from the city, blocking views of the National Mall. This proposal fails Eisenhower, fails beauty, fails our capital city, and, in so doing, fails our nation.

In response to the gravity of this situation, the National Civic Art Society (NCAS), an organization dedicated to the betterment of our nation's civic architecture, monuments, and art, and the Institute for Classical Architecture & Classical America (ICACA) Mid-Atlantic Chapter, an organization dedicated to strengthening and furthering the classical building arts, have allied to sponsor a counter proposal competition for the Eisenhower Memorial.

We believe that the best way to commemorate President Eisenhower and adorn the city of Washington is through designs based on the classical idiom of our nation's other great monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial, Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, or the Jefferson Memorial. Our competition is a call for submissions in this tradition.

Further information

National Civic Art Society
904 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
202.548.2600
202.543.3311 (fax)
nationalcivicartsociety@gmail.com