On the Pentagon 9/11 memorial

A few months back, when blogging about an arts-centric Washington, D.C. visit, I mentioned that one of my most memorable college moments was a spontanious road trip to the city, including a silent midde-of-the-night walk through a tourist-free Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

As I read about the intoduction of the Pentagon 9/11 memorial, I’m thinking again of that moment–the experience of a work of art helping to fuse memory and experience and right now into something powerful.

Read what Witold Rybczynski–an outstanding writer/communicator about architecture–thinks about the Pentagon site at Slate.com.

Throughout the years, there have been extremes of thought about how representational these works should be. Consider the difference between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument (and, for that matter, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Consider our own Medal of Honor memorial on the canal and the mixed imagery of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

What should we look for in a monument/memorial? Who should it please or engage? Which monuments, locally or nationally, do you think most effectively create or inspire?  

Your thoughts