Kirk Savage
On his book Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape
Cover Interview of March 03, 2010
biography /
history /
19th century /
20th century /
presidency /
architecture /
21st century /
monuments /
urban planning /
washington dc /
Editor’s note
Originally, this interview ran on the Rorotoko cover page under the headline
“I propose moratorium on permanent public monuments in Washington; experimentation with temporary memorials.”
We highlighted two quotes.
On the first page:
“The creation of the Lincoln and Grant memorials, intended to unify the Mall around a Civil War narrative of national rebirth, introduced notes of suffering and tragedy into what had been an exclusively triumphal landscape.”
On the second:
“Without a brilliant West Point officer named Thomas Lincoln Casey, the nation’s monumental core might never have emerged.”