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To live in Washington is to be surrounded by majestic
buildings and inspiring monuments. Even after 30 years here, I can think no more dignified
and fitting tribute to anyone than the Lincoln Memorial,and I still get chills whenever I
walk by the Capitol. (Thinking about what our clown-like politicians are doing inside it
gives me a different kind of chill, but that's another story.)
But I still cringe when, riding across the Arlen D.
Williams Bridge (named after a victim of the 1982 Air Florida crash) into town, the road
curves around that architectural monstrosity, that slap in the face, that crumbling piece
of shit known as the Jefferson Memorial.
Why do I hate it so much? Here's why:
- Architecturally ludicrous. Jefferson was a big
amateur architect. He especially loved Italian precedents, such as the work of Palladio
and the Roman Parthenon. In both his home at Monticello and the Rotunda of the University
of Virginia, he expertly took the notion of a spherical substructure and scaled it
appropriately for both sites. The Lawn and Range rooms at UVa also convey a dignified
sense of "less is more," a restraint that has kept these buildings alive and
beautiful 200 years later.
So when the incredible hack architect John Russell Pope
was assigned to design a memorial for Jefferson in the late 1930s, he decided to go with
the obvious and work from Jefferson's own architecture in designing his building. Of
course, being a hack, the notion of perspective and restraint meant nothing to him. If six
columns on the front and back of the building were good, why not more? Pope was stuck on
the notion of an open-air memorial, with a 360-degree view of the city, a design that the
Fine Arts Commission had already rejected for Pope's never-built Teddy Roosevelt memorial.
(Although it couldn't have been worse than the junky statue they ended up building on
Roosevelt Island.) On the other hand, a lot of people didn't want a closed structure,
afraid that it would be too similar to the new (dedicated in 1922) Lincoln Memorial. So he
ended up with an incredible pastiche of a design, an open, pedestal-like structure with 36
columns surrounding it and surmounted by the spherical Jeffersonian dome.
The overall effect could not have been worse if he had
stuck tailfins and chrome on a horse. Leaving aside the pure ugliness of the result, the
open design ensured a perpetual chill wind off the Tidal Basin, a lot of rain damage and a
shitload (literally) of pigeon droppings. Standing under the domed roof on even a calm
day, the effect is as if you are standing in a wind tunnel, with various side eddies and
dust devils stirring up scraps of paper and throwing dirt in the eyes of those trying to
read the various inscriptions on the walls. (More on them later.)
Fittingly, however, Pope never survived to see the thing
built. He died in 1937, before construction even started, and his open design, much
criticized at the time, was given the official seal of approval by FDR. FDR's other
architectural fantasies, such as the main building of the Bethesda Naval Medical Center,
show that he knew no more about building design than he did about the Constitution.
- Misleading and Misquoted Writings.
What do you think of when you think of Jefferson's philosophy?
Individual liberty? Freedom from government tyranny? Governing best by governing least?
Well, that's not what the folks who picked the quotes for the interior walls of the
Jefferson Memorial were thinking of.
 The memorial was built during the reign of the most
vociferous proponent of meddlesome government intervention in the lives of the citizens.
While wanting to give lip service to Jefferson's role in the founding of the country, FDR
did not want to highlight his own differences with Jeffersonian philosophy. So his folks
dug up the following quotes to adorn the memorial, often running two or three different
quotes together to distort their meaning. The following quotes and sources are from the
official National Park Service Jefferson Memorial site:
"I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Taken from a letter to
Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these
rights governments are instituted among men. We... solemnly publish and declare, that
these colonies are and of aright ought to be free and independent states... And for the
support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence,
we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour." Taken from the
Declaration of Independence, 1776.
"Almighty God hath created the mind free. All
attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens... are a departure from the
plan of the Holy Author of our religion.... No man shall be compelled to frequent or
support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his
religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to
maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men
whether acting singly or collectively." Taken from A Bill for Establishing Religious
Freedom, 1777 (Passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1786). The last sentence is taken from a
letter to James Madison, August 28, 1789.
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the
liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are
the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his
justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is
more certainly written in the book of fate that these people are to be free. Establish the
law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on
a general plan." Taken from Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785. The last two
sentences are taken from a letter to George Washington, January 4, 1786.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws
and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the
human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made,
new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man
to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever
under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." Taken from a letter to Samuel
Kercheval, July 12, 1816.
What a perfect hodgepodge of quotes, put together by a
president who was in the process of trying to pack the Supreme Court and impose federalism
on our educational and welfare systems. If TJ could see to what effect his quotes have
been used against him, he might be forced to use one of the 60,000 hemp plants at
Monticello for medicinal purposes.
You'd think this would be bad enough. But it gets worse. A
lot of the quotes are, believe it or not, misquoted and misspelled. The Washington Post
ran an article about 10 years ago detailing about 30 instances of misspelling, bad
punctuation, and misquoting. There was a lot of hue and cry about the tackiness of the
errors, but the NPS has never gotten around to fixing it. What kind of memorial is it when
the honoree's words are misspelled?
Bad enough that the quotes are misleading and misspelled.
They are also made of separate little bronze letters which have a tendency to fall off on
occasion, making it look as if the father of the Declaration of Independence was dyslexic.
- Lousy statue.
I
don't know art, the old saying goes, but I know what I like. And I hate the Rudolph Evans
statue at the center of the Jefferson Memorial.  This picture is a little murky (I got it
from the NPS site, and it may be murky on purpose), but you can see the total lack of
form, feel and life in it. TJ stands with a constipated look on his face, his body
language seeming to convey a vague disgust with the viewer, the lack of character in the
bronze castings making him look like a computer-generated special effect. It's sad enough
on its own, but when it's compared to the brilliant Daniel French sculpture in the Lincoln
Memorial, it makes one wonder who had it in for TJ in approving it's installation. Amid
the perpetual wind and the weird echoes caused by the shape of the interior, he looks
decidedly uncomfortable.
So what do we do? As I've mentioned before, TJ is one of
the few heroes in my personal pantheon. In a city named after the physical hero of the
Revolution, there should be a better rememberance of the man who provided the Revolution's
heart and soul. The only bright point in all this is that the memorial may be falling down
on its own. There has not been a month in the last 10 years in which there hasn't been
some kind of scaffolding sounding one part of it or other, trying to keep the cheap marble
and granite from fizzing away in the jet exhausts from Reagan Airport just across
the river.
Tear it down, and do it right.
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