NCAS Publishes "The Gehry Towers Over Eisenhower: The National Civic Art Society Report on Frank Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial"
The NCAS has launched a dedicated website, EisenhowerMemorial.net, to expose the truth about the competition, planning, and design for the proposed Eisenhower Memorial. The centerpiece ofthe website is our extensively researched and documented report, which is being distributed to Congress and other interested parties. The report contains a number of explosive findings:
- The Eisenhower family opposes Frank Gehry's design for the Memorial. The president's grandson, the family's sole representative on the Memorial Commission, has resigned from the Commission.
- The Memorial competition was secretive, exclusive, elitist, and undemocratic -- if it was a true competition at all. Only 44 entries were solicited. This is hundreds fewer than the number of entries submitted in previous national memorial competitions, which were open to all.
- An unknown, unconnected designer could not have won, let alone even entered, the competition. It was thanks to America's openness to talent that Eisenhower was able to rise to the presidency from a humble background. The Memorial competition should have been equally open.
- The Memorial's only statue of Eisenhower depicts him as a life-size barefoot young boy, a shrinky-dink tikey Ikey. It is a travesty that cuts a great man down to size. Giving Eisenhower the boy treatment would be unthinkable were Eisenhower around to defend himself.
- The design of the boy Eisenhower statue is being advised by Charles Ray, an artist whose work sexualizes children and is obscene.
- The statue of Ike as a Kansas farmer-boy is sentimental kitsch. This Happy McMonument does not befit a statesman who defeated the Nazis and who preserved America's peace and prosperity. Leadership is not child's play.
- The Memorial design has contained benches spelling out "IXXI," the Roman numerals for 9 and 11. Whether this reference to the 9/11 attacks was intentional or negligent, the Memorial's architect, Frank Gehry, can no longer be trusted with its design.
- In 2003, Gehry refused to help design a replacement for the Twin Towers since he was not offered enough money. That alone makes Gehry unworthy of Eisenhower, who exemplified selfless public service.
- The void at the heart of the Memorial makes it a temple to nothingness. It is a hollow temple, not a hallowed one.
- The Memorial's crooked-appearing "columns" and tangled "tapestries" do not befit Eisenhower's upright virtue.
- The Memorial's titanic "columns" tower over the puny Ike statute. The result is a Leviathan Memorial swallowing a small-fry Eisenhower. The behemoth commemorates Gehry's ego, not Eisenhower's greatness and humility.
- Eisenhower would be disgusted at the planning and design of his Memorial. As he lamented in 1962, "What has happened to our concept of beauty and decency and morality?"
David Eisenhower Resigns from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission
The Washington Post, Dec. 15, 2011
On December 15, 2011, The Washington Post reported the Eisenhower family's increasingly vocal opposition to Frank Gehry's design for the national memorial honoring their grandfather, President Eisenhower: "Eisenhower's Granddaughters Critical of Gehry's Memorial Design." Shortly after the article was published, the newspaper posted this news flash:
UPDATE: On Thursday, Dec.15, after this story was written, the Eisenhower Commission announced David Eisenhower's resignation from the Commission.
David, the president's grandson, was the family's sole representative on the Commission.
In the 1960s, when the Roosevelt family opposed the selected hideous design for the FDR memorial, the memorial's architects resigned their commission.
The National Civic Art Society Unveils Illustration of Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial on American Currency
Illustration by Sophie Dedieu
On December 1, 2011, The National Civic Art Society unveiled its illustration of how Frank Gehry's design for the national Eisenhower Memorial will appear on an American bill. The Society believes that this ghostly image is anything but funny money. The design is as transparent as the emperor's new clothes.
The illustration is part of the NCAS's ongoing efforts to force a reconsideration of Gehry's totally inappropriate design, which is a folly, not a fait accompli.
President Eisenhower deserves better. The American people deserve better.
We like what Ike would have liked.
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The model of the Memorial design used in the illustration was created by Gehry Partners LLP at the behest of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission. The model is available on the website of the National Park Service, along with other images. The rectangular building behind the Memorial is the U.S. Department of Education.
“Eisenhower Family Calls for Timeout in Approval of Memorial”
The Washington Post, Oct. 6, 2011
On June 6, 2011, The National Civic Art Society Announced the Winners of the Eisenhower Memorial Competition.
The selection of a Frank Gehry design for the official national monument to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in World War II, 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 gargantuan “stainless”-steel screens, which are to be hung between massive cylinders 80-feet tall, would be an uncivil, brutal insult to the classical city envisioned by Pierre L'Enfant and our nation’s Founders.
For that reason, this past spring, the National Civic Art Society and the Institute for Classical Architecture & Art Mid-Atlantic Chapter invited 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.
For more information about the contest, prizes, and details of entry, please see the Eisenhower Memorial Competition 2011 page.