Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial Opens in Washington, D.C.The $150 million memorial—designed by Fra

Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial Opens in Washington, D.C.The $150 million memorial—designed by Frank Gehry, who was selected in a 2009 competition—is finally opening, but it took more than twice as long to complete as it took to win the war. On an unpromising four-acre site, south of the National Mall in Washington—jammed with parked cars and facing the back side of the National Air and Space Museum—Gehry proposed an immense, translucent metal tapestry, to mask the stolid 1961 U.S. Department of Education building behind it. On a plaza in front would be components celebrating Ike as both the supreme commander of the Allies and as the 34th President of the United States. But the design—and Gehry himself—came under fierce attack from several quarters, including the Eisen­hower grandchildren, and from a little-known, conservative critic named Justin Shubow (Shubow went on to find favor in the current White House and reportedly was behind a proposed executive order to mandate a “classical style” for new Federal buildings). At one point, Congress was so swayed by the naysayers that the House canceled the memorial’s appropriation. -- source link

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