Overview

American Shrines: The Architecture of Presidential Commemoration explores the history of presidential memorialization as a series of richly complex architectural designs that unite art, sculpture, architecture, and landscape to represent the nation's collective memory, expressing civic ideals within the public realm. From the Washington Monument to the new memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower, these structures enshrine presidents as heroic figures who embody ideals and aspirations associated with American identity--democracy, freedom, equality, and sacrifice, concepts also conveyed in the smaller commemorative works of gravesites, burial markers, and sculpture. Earlier presidential memorials employed the ancient forms of obelisks and temples, reinterpreted for a new nation; since the mid-20th century, their designs have broadened to include routes through narrative landscapes and libraries that encompass archives, museums, and gardens. Most closely associated with the iconic monuments of Washington, D.C., presidential memorials are located throughout the country. Their evolving forms reflect and shape changing concepts of what it means to be American and of what America itself represents.

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9781625348869

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Thomas Luebke, FAIA, has served since 2005 as the secretary of the Commission of Fine Arts, where he leads the agency's design review activities and its publications program, which includes Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (2013) and Palace of State: The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (2018). He has a master's degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and was awarded the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture by the American Institute of Architects in 2015. Kay (Kathryn) Fanning is the historian with the Commission of Fine Arts since 2008, where she was a contributing writer for two previous CFA publications, Civic Art and Palace of State. She received her PhD in architectural history from the University of Virginia; her dissertation, American Temples: Presidential Memorials of the American Renaissance, was the first comprehensive study of Beaux-Arts presidential memorials. Her scholarly interests include the influence of European Modernism on the American Beaux-Arts tradition and the exploration of how architectural forms are used to convey abstract commemorative ideas.

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