Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 6, 1995 TAG: 9510060086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BENJAMIN FORGEY THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
World War II will be commemorated on one of the most visible, prestigious locations on the Washington Mall.
This was decided definitively Thursday when the National Capital Planning Commission, in a 9 to 3 vote, approved a proposal to place a World War II memorial on a 5.5-acre site between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
The vote set the stage for President Clinton to dedicate the site in early November, and possibly for completion of the memorial by 2000.
``What better year to dedicate a memorial to the defining event of the 20th century?'' asked F. Haydn Williams of the American Battle Monuments Commission. He said the monuments commission now will begin to raise money ``in earnest,'' with a goal ``on an order of magnitude of $100 million.''
Approval by the planning commission was the last major hurdle in the nine-month effort to find a fitting location for the memorial. The Commission of Fine Arts voted in favor of the site last month.
The site embraces the ``rainbow pool,'' an oblong fountain on the Mall's primary east-west axis, between 17th Street N.W. and the Reflecting Pool. Though now mostly broken, the fountain's powerful jets once created rainbow-making sprays on sunny days.
Both the planning and fine arts commissions stressed the need for prudent design guidelines at such a prominent location. Indeed, the planning commission insisted Thursday that the new memorial ``not visually intrude upon the open area'' at the center of the site - namely, the pool itself and strips of land about 50 feet wide on both its north and south sides.
This means, in effect, that the vertical elements of the memorial - buildings, colonnades, obelisks, sculptures - will be confined to the north and south edges of the site with the pool, in some form, as a connecting link.
Although the battle monuments commission so far has not focused on the design and content of the memorial, Williams suggested Thursday that the ``balanced'' site would be ideal for flanking elements: ``One could represent the battle front - the European and Pacific theaters; the other would honor the nation, the home front, our peace aims.''
by CNB