Buildings
Vietnam Interpretation Center
Will Give Voice to Memorial
(archrecord.construction.com - 09/25/2006)
By Jeremy
Lehrer
Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial
represents an understanding that the war’s fallen are
better honored by silence than explanation. Yet this self-restraint
has led the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the organization
that funded and built the Memorial, to lobby for some exegesis:
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center. Legislation authorizing
the 25,000-square-foot center—which would include a collection
of artifacts, an interactive exhibition, and a resource library—passed
in 2003, and a site was approved in August.
“The Wall doesn’t tell a story
about individuals or about the larger war itself,” says
James Polshek, the architect who has been enlisted to design
the new museum. “More than anything, that justifies the
creation of this Center, which is not necessarily for all
of us alive today. It’s for future generations and younger
generations.”
Although design plans have not yet been
made public, the proposed structure will be placed underground
between the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials, fulfilling Congress’s
specifications that it wouldn’t compromise the National
Mall. In addition to Polshek Partnership, Ralph Appelbaum
Associates will be responsible for the exhibition design,
and Hargreaves Associates will handle landscape.
Lin was involved with the committee
that chose Polshek Partnership Architects, and she has offered
her support for the project in statements. Yet the decision
to build the Center has prompted opposition from the National
Coalition to Save Our Mall, the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, and others. Critics are worried that the impact
of the Memorial will be lessened by the museum, and that it
may inspire other groups to lobby for structures that will
further crowd the Mall.
Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president
of the Memorial Fund, says veterans enthusiastically support
the plan. He also points out that Lin’s Memorial, though
initially excoriated, is now the most visited site on the
Mall, adding, “Anyone who would have quit the [original]
project because someone criticized it does not have the vision.
We have the vision, and we have some of the country’s
finest minds involved.”
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