WW1 Memorial at Pershing Park
WW1 Memorial at Pershing Park
Washington D.C.
2016 National World War I Memorial Competition, Winning Team
In January 2016, Phoebe Lickwar was selected as part of the winning multidisciplinary team for the WWI Memorial Competition, together with designer Joe Weishaar, sculptor Sabin Howard, and GWWO Architects. Lickwar served as the consulting landscape architect through concept design. The competition scheme proposed by Joe Weishaar and Sabin Howard required iterative and extensive redevelopment to resolve preservation concerns and to sensitively fit the memorial within the existing historic park. Pershing Park was designed in 1979-80 by M. Paul Friedberg with planting re-designed by Oehme van Sweden in 1981. A significant work of modernist landscape architecture, the park was determined eligible for listing on the historic register in July 2016.
Lickwar worked as co-designer of a new proposal for the memorial, retaining and integrating the main commemorative sculptural work originally proposed through strategic and minimal adaptation of the existing park. FORGE’s proposal to adapt the Friedberg cascade to feature the commemorative sculpture was rejected in favor of replacing the cascade altogether with a monumental wall. FORGE led the design team in the analysis of the M. Paul Friedberg and Oehme van Sweden designs, analysis of existing conditions, stormwater and planting design strategies, and presentation to the Commission of Fine Arts and the Section 106 process.
The “Restored Pool Concept” was awarded concept approval from the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission in 2017.
Efforts to fit the wall within the park included an options developed by FORGE, which placed the wall along the upper walkway, leaving the terraced seating and large central water feature intact. These options privileged the transformation of the existing park through an ecological overlay including restorative plantings and a hydrological treatment system. Plantings were redesigned for commemorative purpose and ecological value and the central water feature converted to a natural pool.
Oehme van Sweden planting analysis
