Tucker Designer Wins Major Award

Designer and Tucker resident Daniel Cook has won the prestigious Eisenhower Memorial design competition, earning first prize at a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington D.C. That reception was appropriately held on June 6 on the 67th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France; the liberation of France was commanded by Eisenhower. 

“I sought to create a simple, yet elegant memorial to honor President Eisenhower,” explained Cook. “As many architects before me, especially in our nation’s capital, I looked to the ancients as well as to our founding fathers for inspiration and found that there would be no more fitting a monument with which to honor Dwight D. Eisenhower than with an appropriately scaled and proportioned triumphal arch.”

“Triumphant though he was in war, the Eisenhower Arch is also set as a reminder of the peace that he restored as general and subsequently maintained as president,” said Cook. “Statuary of Eisenhower – as general and president – are sheltered between pairs of Corinthian columns, which evoke a celebration of his life as he stands heroically overlooking the plaza in which the arch is set.”

Cook also described the memorial gardens that flank the Eisenhower Arch in his design. Doric columns in the gardens illustrate Eisenhower’s strength of character but also provide a peaceful memorial to the values he fought for, according to Cook.

Cook works for Foreman Seeley Fountain Architecture in Norcross, a firm that specializes in designing schools, churches and banks. He is in the process of becoming an architect. “I entered the competition on my own, seeing it as a wonderful exercise in classical architecture and chance to test my drafting, rendering, and design abilities,” he said.

The design review process for the Eisenhower Memorial, to be located across from the National Air and Space Museum, continues. Cook and his classical peers hope their counterproposals influence the Eisenhower Memorial Commission’s final design decision.   

The Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential era (1953-1961) was sandwiched between two turbulent periods – the bloodiest part of the Korean War and the assassinations, urban riots and Vietnam War of the 1960s. Therefore, Eisenhower’s eight years as president were considered a period of relative calm in American history.

Less quiet has been the controversy over a memorial design to honor Eisenhower (1890-1969). In 1999, Congress set up the Eisenhower Memorial Commission to honor this country’s 34th president in Washington DC. In 2009, the commission selected internationally-known contemporary architect Frank Gehry to be the lead designer and they preliminarily selected one of his designs on March 25, 2010.

Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial design proposal has been controversial, particularly his limestone columns and woven metal tapestries. In the past, Gehry has been criticized by some for designing structures that overwhelm their environment. A number of his designs in Washington, Paris and Brooklyn were scrapped.

Instead of sitting on the sidelines whining about Gehry’s plans, the National Civic Art Society and Institute for Classical Architecture & Art decided to take action. They sponsored a competition for designers to come up with an appropriate Eisenhower Memorial counterproposal that would compare better to existing capital classical monuments.

An earlier version of this article described Mr. Cook as an architect. He is in the process of obtaining his certification.