Gehry, Amid Public Criticism, Submits Alterations to Eisenhower Memorial.

An update on the Frank Gehry designed Eisenhower memorial (original post).

Designer Frank Gehry has submitted some redesigns to his Eisenhower Memorial, due to outrage from Eisenhower family members as well as large criticism from the public and media. The architect states "I love this type of collaboration..." in regards to the back-and-forth between public and designer saying that it's

"vital to the success of any endeavor and one that was necessary to make sense of sometimes contradictory characterizations of President Eisenhower. How do you represent a man of such towering achievement whose modesty was one of his core values?”

The architect submitted redesigns and awaits a statement from the family. Interesting to note, though, that the statue most disliked (one of the president as a barefoot boy from kansas) was not altered, nor where a variety of other problems the family, public and media had with the design...
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/in-response-to-complaints-gehry-changes-design-for-eisenhower-memorial/

From reading a few stories about this, It seems to me that Gehry has designed a memorial to what he wants and hasn't given  consideration for other's desires or the monuments needs. He acts like this "back-and-forth" between architect and family has been a critique that's been welcome, happy and just part of the process. In reality, the family feels disrespected and has massively criticized the design from the start, claiming the designer never sought out the family's opinion and has discounted their input. As an artist, you have to go with your gut when making art. As a public artist, you DO need to take into account the public, or risk delivering a product which no one wants, no one understands,  no one respects and that, ultimately, is a failure. The original design for this seemed completely unnecessary and over the top. This redesign seems to be a slight give on the side of the artist, but mostly in an attempt to disregard and gloss over the other glaring criticisms of the design.

When you look at a design for this memorial and then look at the Washington memorial, the Lincoln memorial, the Vietnam Memorial...even the 9/11 memorial...this Eisenhower behemoth seems confusing and unfocused...the marriage of eight different 'OK' ideas rolled into one, when 7 should have been thrown out, and one worked on, whittled down, and perfected. The afore-mentioned memorials are great because of their power, impact and simplicity....if Gehry doesn't heed the warnings of many, I fear his memorial will be none of the above.