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| Lead Architect Joe Weishaar with Some Final Details for His Winning Design |
Born and raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Joe Weishaar remembers once standing on the Champs Elysees in Paris as a University of Arkansas student and thinking, "What in the world is a kid from Arkansas doing here?" Later, Joe would be a 25-year-old architecture intern with a Chicago firm when he was inspired to take an improbable shot that would bring his talents into the world's limelight.
Joe says he came across the competition for the design of a World War I Memorial for America's capital on an online site at the end of May in 2015 and saw an opportunity. As he recounts what followed, "It would be fair to say that up to that point I knew little about the war." Nonetheless, he had an instinctual feel for what was needed and cranked out a design in about three weeks, working late nights and on weekends. Eventually, 364 other applicants from around the world—artists, architects, and design firms, large and small—would also make submissions. After sending his proposal off, Joe recounts he completely forgot about it for the next two months. When he was notified he was one of the five finalists for the design competition, he was surprised and thrilled.
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| The Jefferson Memorial by Joseph Weishaar (Painted During the WWI Memorial Construction) |
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Recently, I had the opportunity to have an online exchange with Joe, during which he answered some of my questions about what happened next after his selection as a finalist:
MH: I understand is you did not have a lot of detailed knowledge about the war when you became a finalist. Did you then do a crash course study of WWI?
JW: I did read a few of the classics, All Quiet on the Western Front, A Farewell to Arms, and The Guns of August. A lot of the things I learned came from going to various presentations of the WWI Commissioners and listening to their conversations. That got me through about 99% of everything I needed to know. The only time it completely failed was one particular event when I was put on the spot and asked to stand up and speak at a symposium for historians on the Treaty of Versailles. That did not go well. . . So much more of the research actually revolved around looking at WWI paintings, photographs, and getting an understanding of what life was like before and after the war. I actually got to a point several months into the process, (after winning in 2016 and starting on the real memorial) that I had to put the books down. It became incredibly overwhelming thinking that the memorial needed to be good enough to live up to the sacrifice of all of the young men and women in the war. [Looking back] I think the memorial would need to be 10x bigger to encompass all of the history and stories that I came across for it to actually convey to the American people just how critical this war was to the world that they live in today.
MH: You went (amazingly to me) from a one man show, to a project team with an architectural firm, a famous artist, consultants, etc. How did this come about?
JW: It was crazy. . . As an unlicensed designer (not yet legally allowed to call myself an architect), there was really no way that I could compete with the other teams, or even carry out the project. I had to have someone who could take on that role. [After several other attempts, friends in another firm] called me back and said, "Hey, so there's this guy we know in Baltimore. He was in our wedding and he's a partner at this firm called GWWO Architects. They're good people.". I contacted them up, told them what I wanted to do, and they agreed to sign on to the project on the spot. I didn't know it at the time, but they already had an incredible relationship with all of the agencies in DC and had already earned much respect for turning out wonderful projects with the National Park Service. As soon as I showed up at the next meeting and said I had signed GWWO on to the team, I got lots of head nods of approval. At that point, it felt like people actually started to take me seriously, and we had a hope of winning. [Other key additions to the design team included sculptor Sabin Howard and landscape architect the David Rubin Land Collective.]
MH: What lessons have you drawn from your successful experience as the Lead Architect for our National World War One Memorial?
JW: If the final memorial gets people just a little bit interested and sparks some nugget of wanting to learn more about America's experience in the war, then I think my work will have been a success. . . I had to actively engage with the world and listen to the things that people said were meaningful so I could convey that into architecture. The biggest lesson I learned is that we don't build memorials for the dead. We build them for the living. We build them to protect and preserve our memories and our stories and to remind ourselves to try and do great things with our lives. Also, I want to stress how much of a collaboration this project was. Honestly, we had so many people with valuable input contribute to this project that it's sometimes hard to say who did what.
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In January 2016, out of all the applicants to design the National WWI Memorial Joe Weishaar and his new design team were chosen. The jury praised his concept, "The Weight of Sacrifice," as “elegant and absolute,” and a “deceptively simple concept” that "remediated a problematic site, Pershing Park, located just a block from the White House."
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| The Winning Proposal—Overhead View |
Edwin Fountain, Vice Chairman of the World War I Centennial Commission, who took the lead in organizing the effort to build the new memorial, has worked closely with Joe for the past eight years and has this to say about him:
As a young architect (in training), Joe did not have the ego that would have led him to a grandiose design concept. Rather, Joe won the competition with an astutely simple design that respected the original Pershing Park site and harmonized well with the surrounding built environment, while incorporating the opportunity for a monumental sculpture that would convey the accomplishments of Americans in World War I. He then assembled a team of talented design partners including master sculptor Sabin Howard and led them collaboratively to deliver a site that successfully integrated memorial and urban park elements in an elegant setting that does honor to our WWI veterans.
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| The Winning Proposal—Ground View |
Today Joe Weishaar is an architect based in Atlanta, Georgia, with Smith Dalia Architects, but will be in attendance at the First Illumination ceremony on Friday 13 September, when he and his consulting artist, Sabin Howard, get to see Howard's masterful relief sculpture, A Soldier's Journey the central and final piece of the Memorial, dedicated.
The First Illumination event on 13 September will be made available worldwide via online streaming. This will give the opportunity to experience Sabin Howard's artwork as a unified artistic and patriotic work.
Sign-up HERE for the service.
Tomorrow: Meet Master Sculptor Sabin Howard, creator of A Soldier's Journey, on Roads to the Great War.
Sources: Worldwar One Centennial Commission; Univ. of Arkansas; Arkansas Democrat Gazette
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