Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape

by KirkSavage (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $8.26

  The National Mall in Washington, D.C., is 'a great public space, as essential a part of the American landscape as the Grand Canyon,' according to architecture critic Paul Goldberger, but few realize how recent, fragile, and contested this achievement is. In Monument Wars , Kirk Savage tells the Mall's engrossing story - its historic plan, the structures that populate its corridors, and the sea change it reveals regarding national representation. Central to this narrative is a dramatic shift from the nineteenth-century concept of a decentralized landscape, or 'ground'-heroic statues spread out in traffic circles and picturesque parks-to the twentieth-century ideal of 'space,' in which authority is concentrated in an intensified center, and the monument is transformed from an object of reverence to a space of experience. Savage's lively and intelligent analysis traces the refocusing of the monuments themselves, from that of a single man, often on horseback, to commemorations of common soldiers or citizens; and, from monuments that celebrate victory and heroism to memorials honoring victims. An indispensable guide to the National Mall, Monument Wars provides a fresh and fascinating perspective on over two hundred years of American history.

• New

  Paperback
  2011

  $28.88

  The National Mall in Washington, D.C., is 'a great public space, as essential a part of the American landscape as the Grand Canyon,' according to architecture critic Paul Goldberger, but few realize how recent, fragile, and contested this achievement is. In Monument Wars , Kirk Savage tells the Mall's engrossing story - its historic plan, the structures that populate its corridors, and the sea change it reveals regarding national representation. Central to this narrative is a dramatic shift from the nineteenth-century concept of a decentralized landscape, or 'ground'-heroic statues spread out in traffic circles and picturesque parks-to the twentieth-century ideal of 'space,' in which authority is concentrated in an intensified center, and the monument is transformed from an object of reverence to a space of experience. Savage's lively and intelligent analysis traces the refocusing of the monuments themselves, from that of a single man, often on horseback, to commemorations of common soldiers or citizens; and, from monuments that celebrate victory and heroism to memorials honoring victims. An indispensable guide to the National Mall, Monument Wars provides a fresh and fascinating perspective on over two hundred years of American history.