WASHINGTON —As critics of a planned monument honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower object to everything from its giant scale to its depiction of the Cold War president and famed World War II general as a ” ‘barefoot boy’ from Kansas,” new images and documents released to The Associated Press reveal other key elements overshadowed by the furor and show how the controversial project developed.
The Frank Gehry work, to be built as a memorial park just off the National Mall, would feature two stones in “heroic scale” and carved with bas reliefs.
Based on new images recently released to AP, the carvings would depict a famed photo of Ike addressing his troops on the eve of D-Day and another of the Republican president studying the globe.
Most of the attention and criticism has focused on large metal tapestries, proposed by Gehry to portray Eisenhower’s Kansas roots, and a statue of a young Eisenhower.
As recently as Monday, Rep. Dan Lungren of California, chairman of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Capitol grounds, and Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock asked the National Capital Planning Commission to rethink the design.
“The current design, which depicts him as a ‘barefoot boy’ from Kansas rather than highlighting his influential roles and accomplishments … is a contemporary design contrary to memorial architecture already on the National Mall,” the Republican congressmen wrote. The “barefoot boy” phrase comes from Eisenhower’s reminiscences.
For retired Brig. Gen. Carl Reddel, who has helped guide the project for more than a decade, the criticism ignores the core pieces of the memorial that represent Ike’s achievements.
“People started to think about (the tapestries) as the memorial, which it’s not,” Reddel told AP, saying they would frame a larger memorial park. “The memorial is within this context.”
