View of the planned new National World War I Memorial looking west toward the monumental bronze sculpture. The new memorial is now in Phase I of the construction process.

Pershing Park: The Evolution Of A Modernist Memorial

By David Rubin
via the David Rubin Land Collective web site

Landscapes are extraordinary, if only for their dynamism – an ever-changing marriage of static and living systems. They’re also reflections of our culture – truly political constructs describing the values of our society. Landscapes present a living canvas of pentimenti expressing both the site’s history and our own changing cultural values as time moves forward.

Historically-significant landscapes require a nuanced approach to managing change, one that is respectful of the past, but that lifts the bell jar, so that history can be made accessible to twenty-first century society. Such is the case with our work on Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., revivifying a modernist construct redefined as a national memorial and a welcoming place of urban respite. 

New Year / New Memorial

DAVID RUBIN Land Collective is celebrating 2020 with the commencement of construction of the National World War I Memorial. On December 12, 2014, the United States Congress redefined the entirety of Pershing Park, so named for the conflict’s formidable leader, General John J. Pershing, as the National World War I Memorial. Pershing Park, located in the monumental core of the nation’s capital at the terminus of Pennsylvania Avenue proximate to the White House, is a modernist construct by landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg.

The expanded commemorative composition no longer focuses solely upon a monumental figure. Rather, in expression throughout the park, the memorial will shift from singular recognition to a broader, more inclusive acknowledgement of sacrifice and the United States’ role in this global conflict.

Read the entire article on David Rubin Land Collective web site here:

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