WWI Memorial Winner Announced

The team led by Weishaar and Howard bested the four other finalists with a design where "each cubic foot of the memorial represents an American soldier lost in the war; 116,516 in all," per their project narrative. Planned for Pershing Park, designed by M. Paul Friedberg and completed in 1981, the winning design preserves the existing WWI Memorial and uses three figurative bronze walls to demarcate a rectangular lawn in the center of the block. Per the Commission, the goal of the competition is "to transform Pershing Park from a park that happens to contain a memorial to a site that is primarily a national World War I memorial, within a revitalized urban park setting with a distinct sense of place that complements the memorial purpose." If all goes according to plan and approvals (by the National Park Service and the National Capital Planning Commission, among others) are gained in a timely fashion, the approximately $30 million memorial should be completed in 2018 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.