My wife had to go out to Washington DC this week for a work conference, so I used it as an opportunity to tag along on a min-vacation. The last time I was in Washington DC was the summer of 2003 and Brittany's last visit was in 2002--both almost a decade ago. We flew out a couple days before Brittany's conference so that we would get to spend some time seeing our Nation's Capitol together before she had to work. We took the early morning direct flight from Des Moines (
yes, we have an airport, remember?) to Reagan National Airport so that we could still do some sightseeing on our first day there.
Rather than making a bunch of plans for our first day, we decided to just wander around the National Mall area where ever we felt like going.
We knew we wanted to check out some of the Smithsonian Museums during the week, so we started off by visiting the main building of the Smithsonian Institute--The Castle.
Washington DC has some fantastic older buildings, but The Castle has to be one of my favorites.
On the plane ride, I had begun reading
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Iowa native Bill Bryson. In one chapter he visits Washington DC and looks back on the history of the Smithsonian Institute:
"The Smithsonian Institution--which, incidentally, was donated to America by an Englishman who had never been there--used to be all one building, but they keep splitting off sections of it and putting them in new buildings all over town....Back in the 1950s and '60s, the Smithsonian was the castle. Everything was crammed into this one wonderfully dark and musty old building. It was like the nation's attic and, like an attic, it was gloriously random."
After visiting the castle we continued looping around the Mall and ended up by the Museum of the American Indian. We didn't have the chance to go inside (gotta leave some things to do on our next visit!) but we did walk around the outside of the building. When I was last in DC, this museum was just a skeleton of steel and a little bit of stone on the outside. Now it is completed and beautiful. The entire exterior of the building is covered in Kasota Limestone from Mankato, Minnesota. I love Kasota stone and especially love when it is used as wonderfully and skillfully as it has been on the Museum of the American Indian.
Our first stop into one of the museums on the Mall was at the National Gallery of Art's west building. Brittany was excited to see works by some of her favorite impressionist painters, and I was elated to see a number of wonderful paintings by Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt (no photographs of the paintings, sorry).
Washington DC is not a particularly tall city. It's tallest occupant, the Washington Monument, is visible from almost everywhere in town as a result. Though the monument is closed indefinitely thanks to an earthquake and a hurricane, we still took the time to walk by. The lawn around the monument is completely closed off to visitors due to damage at the top of the building. We were still able to get close enough to get some nice photos of the monument.
The World War II Memorial had been added to the National Mall since we were last in town, so we were both excited to go see it.
At the west side of the memorial there is a wall above a shallow pool of water decorated with hundreds of gold stars. Each star on this wall represents 1,000 United States soldiers who were killed in WWII.
Our last stop of the day was to the newly-opened Martin Luther King Junior Memorial. I'll share the photo here before I share my thoughts on it.
The memorials in Washington DC are (in my mind, anyway) divided into two categories: the architectural icons (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln) and the more emotional, experiential landscapes (Korean War, Vietnam War, FDR). After visiting the MLK Memorial, I'm convinced that it does not fit into either of these two categories, and that's a bad thing. It lacks the physical dominance and awe-inspiring presence of the Lincoln and Jefferson monuments, and fails to evoke the powerful silence of emotions like the Vietnam War or Roosevelt memorials. The MLK Memorial is neither moving nor impressive. It really is just a famous guy carved into a big rock.
There are a number of major flaws in the design and realization of this monument that I believe render it weaker than all of its neighbors:
On the side of the stone to MLK's left is a quote that has caused no small amount of controversy and was
reported by news channels at the time of the memorial's opening. I agree with the assessments of those who have protested the misquote--the words seem to demonstrate a level of egotism and self-importance that would be atypical of Dr. King. But it is not the misquote itself that I find troubling. Spreading away from the carved figure to the north and south are two long stone walls, each emblazoned with more quotations from Dr. King. Full, unparaphrased quotations. Why, to the designers and creators of the memorial, would you choose to use full quotations by this great man in 99% of the instances and not in 100%? Why paraphrase only one quotation and, by paraphrasing, change its entire tone--its entire meaning?
The design and layout of all of the other monuments nearby are all incredibly intentional and detailed in terms of how they relate to each other. The WWII memorial has a massive stone inscription at its entrance stating why it has been placed directly between the Washington and Lincoln monuments. Every line, every angle created by Maya Lin in her design for the Vietnam War Memorial explicitly relates to the other monuments and important buildings nearby. Jefferson's statue faces the Washington Monument, his predecessor, and the White House. So why, with the opportunity for powerful symbolism plentiful, does Dr. King's grumpy-looking stare aim off into nothingness? He is staring towards the runway at Reagan National Airport as the planes buzz overhead.
Long rant in a nutshell: I love that Martin Luther King, Jr. has a memorial in Washington D.C. among the monuments to most courageous soldiers and most brilliant national leaders. However, the creators and designers of this memorial have failed to seize the opportunity presented to them to create something iconic, something deeply moving.
What we had intended to be a low-key day of casually wandering the Mall actually turned into quite a bit of walking! Less walking, but lots of photos, to come in the next post.
