Five finalists have been selected from a field of 350 entries for the competition to build a new World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The chosen designs, ranging from a neoclassical monument reminiscent of the grand arches and gates of Europe to a complex green space featuring glens, earthworks and etched images of war, were announced Wednesday by the World War I Centennial Commission.
The finalists each will receive a $25,000 honorarium and are in the running for the grand prize — the design built in Washington's Pershing Park, on Pennsylvania Avenue, to the tune of $21 million to $25 million.
Organizers said the winning designs needed to pay tribute to the great sacrifices of veterans who are no longer alive while also providing a setting that fits into a neighborhood that includes hotels, theaters, offices and the White House.
The current site holds a monument to Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in the "Great War," and a plaza designed by modernist landscape architect Paul Friedberg.
A group called the Cultural Landscape Foundation has come out in opposition of demolishing the Friedberg work and accompanying gardens, and has named the plaza to its list of at-risk and threatened landscapes.
"Modernist landscapes, despite the wide popularity of Modernist design, remain at great risk for unsympathetic change and demolition and this current threat to Pershing Park attests to that fragility," said Charles Birnbaum, president of the foundation.
Congress redesignated the site for a National World War I Memorial as part of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, with a commission raising the funds privately for design and construction.
The commission expects to select a final design concept by January with groundbreaking planned for Veterans Day 2017.
More than 4.7 million veterans served in World War I, and 116,516 died.
The last American World War I veteran, Frank Buckles, died in 2011 at age 110. The former Army corporal served as honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation, lending his name to the effort to restore the District of Columbia War Memorial on the National Mall, an elegant marble bandstand erected in 1931.
The selected design concepts, featured on the commission's website, are:
- Plaza to the Forgotten War, Johnsen Schmaling Architects, Milwaukee;
- World War One Memorial Concept, Kimmel Studio, Annapolis, Maryland;
- The Weight of Sacrifice, Joseph Weishaar, Chicago;
- An American Family Portrait Wall in the Park, STL Architects, Chicago; and
Heroes' Green, Maria Counts, Counts Studio, New York.
Commission chairman Robber Dalessandro said the commission also will leave the 350 entries on its site as well, calling them "lasting tributes" to World War I veterans.
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
