REPORT OF THE ARCHITECT ON DESIGNS SUBMITTED FOR A LINCOLN MEMORIAL ON THE MERIDIAN HILL SITE AND ON THE SOLDIERS’ HOME GROUNDS SITE JOHN RUSSELL POPE Architect 527 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/reportofarchitecOOpope REPORT OF THE ARCHITECT ON DESIGNS SUBMITTED FOR A LINCOLN MEMORIAL ON THE MERIDIAN HILL SITE AND ON THE SOLDIERS’ HOME GROUNDS SITE A Lincoln Memorial Design for The Soldiers’ Home Grounds Site ( I « I ■ I A Lincoln Memorial Design for The Soldiers’ Home Grounds Site Detail View from South John Russell Pope, Architect A Lincoln Memorial Design for The Soldiers’ Home Grounds Site John Russell Pope, Architect Interior View SITES — THE MERIDIAN HILL AND THE SOLDIERS’ HOME GROUNDS T he City of Washington has two dominating, ever-present vital features. They express her purpose and our ideals. They are carried in the minds of all men and are a constant edu- cational and moral factor among them. They are the Dome of the Capitol and the Monument to Washington. Elevation has always added dignity, grandeur and loftiness of purpose to beauty; the vital element in these two monuments is that they rise above us. The Capitol is on an elevation eighty-eight feet above the Po- tomac and its dome begins its rise one-hundred feet above. The crest of Meridian Hill has an elevation of one hundred and eighty-five feet, or is approximately one hundred feet above the Capitol site. The crest of the hill on the axis of North Capitol Street on the Soldiers’ Home Grounds has an elevation of two hundred and ten feet, or approximately one hundred and thirty feet higher than the site of the Capitol. The possibility of a third dominating vital feature in Washing- ton on either of these sites is indicated by these figures. The Meridian Hill site and the Soldiers’ Home Grounds site are on Main Axes of the City plan. They are suitably situated for monuments of the first order. Both sites possess qualities absolutely necessary to an unhamp- ered expression of purpose in the monuments on them by reason of their independence of surrounding important architectural dictates, considerations or comparisons. The Meridian Hill site though restricted in area is of sufficient size to allow of suitable landscape setting. Its elevation above its surroundings and above the traffic of Sixteenth Street overcomes any objection in connection with these considerations. The Soldiers’ Home Grounds site possesses the grand qualities of isolation, of elevation, of unlimited area of beautifully treed park- ing, and of control of all suiroimdings affecting it. It is not too remotely situated and is easy of access. It is in the author’s opin- ion a location in the biggest, finest sense for a great memorial, and the finest in Washington for that purpose. The existence of the City’s filtration plant close by is not an ob- jection, but an advantage; for at a slight expense it can be given all the appearance of an adjoining park. Comment on the associations of these sites with Lincoln, such as the Meridian Hill site being on the road to Gettysburg, and the Soldiers’ Home Grounds site being his summer home, is not in the sphere of this report. A MEMORIAL TO LINCOLN I take the liberty of quoting in part the Hon. John Hay’s re- mark on this subject: “As I understand it the place of honor is on the main axis of the plan. Lincoln of all men deserves this place of honor. He was of the immortals. You must not approach too close to the im- mortals. His monument should stand alone, remote from the com- mon habitations of man, apart from the business and turmoil of the city, isolated, distinguished and serene.” These are the qualities that should obtain in a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The author of these drawings interprets these sentiments not in the form of a monument, a tomb, an arch or any form of building, — for these their labels alone denote their pur- pose; — but in a figure of the man himself, alone, serene, above us, in a setting of simple memorial dignity, a setting of proportions sufficient to share the prominence of the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument, but in which the man is always felt. THE MERIDIAN HILL SITE MEMORIAL The design calls for the purchase of land and the razing of a building to the west of Sixteenth Street. It provides for a Park 750 X 1,200 feet on the crest and slope of the hill. It diverts Six- teenth Street around this Park and places the Memorial in the cen- ter on the axis of Sixteenth Street. At the north and south ends of this Park are open plazas, the width of the Park. From these plazas rise steps one hundred feet wide in terraces to a platform 100 x 200 feet at an elevation of 250 feet, or weU above the columns of the Capitol dome. On this plat- form is placed the figure of Lincoln. Around the figure stands a double rectangle of monumental sentinel columns measuring, with their entablatures and covering, sixty-four feet in height; each column measuring eight feet in diameter and forty feet in height. THE SOLDIERS’ HOME GROUND SITE MEMORIAL On the axis of North Capitol Street, on the crest of the hill one thousand feet from Michigan Avenue, and approached from it by a court four hundred feet wide, is placed a platform six hundred feet square. This platform rises on grass terraces to a height above the adjoining trees. The platform has an elevation of two hundred and twenty-five feet, or is at a height well above the columns of the Capitol dome. In the center of tliis, and slightly raised above the terrace, stands the figure of Lincoln. Around him stand mon- umental sentinel columns in the form of an arcade three hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and with the entablature and attic measuring seventy feet in height. In this design as well as the other, there is no architectural fea- ture symbolical of governmental or other significance than that of homage as a setting to the figure of the man. The architecture is for this one direct purpose. The design calls for a suitable dedication over the main south columns— and provides a frieze on the inside of the court around the Lincoln statue for a record of his words. TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN PIONEER ORATOR JURIST STATESMAN PARDONER RECONCILER EMANCIPATOR LOVER AND PROTECTOR OF ALL LIFE WHO THROUGH THE BITTERNESS OF WAR PRESERVED THE UNION AND WHO THROUGH A MARTYR’S DEATH HEALED THE WOUNDS OF THE SWORD AND CEMENTED IN LOVE A REUNITED PEOPLE Respectfully, A Lincoln Memorial Design for the Meridian Hill Site i' \ i . r ji » I^u A Lincoln Memorial Design for the Meridian Hill Site Detail View from North John Bussell Pope, Architect i ■ <■ ) p, V \ \ A Lincoln Memorial Design for the Meridian Hill Site John Bussell Pope, Architect Interior View { > 3 I - ! V I f THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY