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Loading... Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (edition 2009)by Kirk Savage
Work InformationMonument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape by Kirk Savage
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It is these subtle interconnections that are the best material in Savage’s book. He is strongest when dealing with the nineteenth-century city and its transformation. But the book pushes on and grows somewhat more scattered in its treatment of more recent changes to the mall. Awards
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 Wars provides a fresh and fascinating perspective on over two hundred years of American history. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)725.9409753The arts Architecture Public structures OtherLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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