Seventeen years after Congress authorized the construction of an Eisenhower Memorial, the tribute to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower remains unbuilt, largely because of the Eisenhower family's impassioned opposition to architect Frank Gehry's design. And what Gehry has endured is nothing compared to the travails of New York architect and artist Maya Lin, who in 1981 won the design competition for the now-revered Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Opponents called Lin's plan for the V-shaped, granite-walled memorial "a black gash of shame." They attacked Lin, then a 21-year-old Yale undergraduate, with racial slurs.
Appropriately, then, Weishaar met Lin last fall when she gave a lecture at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. He'd already emerged from a field of more than 350 entrants as one of five finalists for the World War I memorial. Peter MacKeith, dean of the University of Arkansas school of architecture invited Weishaar, a 2013 graduate of the school, to the lecture. He and Lin had a memorable exchange.
"She told me to have a sense of humor," Weishaar recalled. "She said: 'I'm glad it's you and not me again.' "
Cover Story / Arkansas Reporter / The Week That Was / The Observer / Editorial / Max Brantley / Ernest Dumas / Gene Lyons / Jay Barth / Words / Guest Writer / Letters
A&E Feature / To-Do List / In Brief / Movie Reviews / Music Reviews / Theater Reviews / A&E News / Art Notes / Media / Dining Reviews / Dining Guide / Calendar / Gallery Listings
allen, the connections between localized low temperature excursions and overall global warming have been explained…
no true redneck would be named vlad vlad. how about vladbob? i like vlad vlad…