Monument Wars

by Savage, Kirk

• ISBN13: 9780520271333
• ISBN10: 0520271335
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-07-11
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

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 Warsprovides a fresh and fascinating perspective on over two hundred years of American history.

Author Biography

Kirk Savage is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
A Monument to a Deceased Project	p. 25
Covering Ground	p. 63
The Mechanic Monster	p. 107
Inventing Public Space	p. 147
The Monument Transformed	p. 195
The Conscience of the Nation	p. 251
An End to War, an End to Monuments?	p. 297
Notes	p. 315
Selected Bibliography	p. 357
List of Illustrations	p. 375
Index	p. 379
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