Monuments: The Kennedy Center #1

In our last post, we asked, "Can you name the building that replaced the Heurich Brewery after it was demolished?"

Answer:  The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the U.S. national cultural center, opened in 1971 on the former site of the Heurich Brewery along the Potomac.

Edward Durell Stone, a proponent of modern architecture, designed the building.  Stone's early curvilinear building design was an homage to The Jetsons.  In the picture below, the building looks like a space ship that landed on the bank of the Potomac River.    

Preliminary proposal by Edward Durell Stone (1959)

The final design of the building was much different.  It does not look like a space-age structure.  According to Wikipedia:  "Borrowing the overall form of the building from Henry Bacon's Lincoln Memorial and Stone's own U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, the front of the building consisted of an attenuated colonnade supporting a cantilevered cornice, with an attic floor set well back from the edge of the cornice."

Lincoln Memorial designed by Henry Bacon (opened 1922)

U.S. Embassy in New Delhi designed by Edward Durell Stone (opened in 1959)

The Kennedy Center by Edward Durell Stone (opened in 1971)

Aerial view of the Kennedy Center

The similarity between the Kennedy Center and the New Delhi embassy is striking but not surprising.  Apparently, Jackie Kennedy had visited and admired the embassy and recalled it when she was involved in the planning of the Kennedy Center.  

Not everyone has adored the building.  Ada Louise Huxtable, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times architecture critic wrote, "May all the performing arts flourish. Because the building is a national tragedy. It is a cross between a concrete candy box and a marble sarcophagus in which the art of architecture lies buried."

Greg likes the building's design.  It reminds him of a Greek temple, which is no surprise given its shape, its use of exterior columns and Stone's inspiration taken from the nearby Lincoln Memorial. 

Thanks for visiting the Kennedy Center and the former site of the Heurich Brewery with us.

P.S.  Here is another view of the building, Lego Kennedy Center.