These days M. Paul Friedberg is looking like one lucky guy. A retired modernist landscape architect in his late 80s, he has only a few purportedly important projects to his credit, and his reputation rests largely on an innovative approach to playground design. A few years ago, Congress redesignated his derelict Pershing Park (1981), situated just east of the White House and Treasury Department along Pennsylvania Avenue, as a World War I memorial, authorizing the park’s much-needed “enhancement” with “appropriate sculptural and other commemorative elements, including landscaping.”

But it turns out the federal Commission of Fine Arts, which reviews such projects in the nation’s capital, is determined to retain the essence of Friedberg’s Pershing Park—especially qualities associated with its now-empty central pool and boxy, granite-clad fountain, which has been out of action for over a decade—even if doing so stands in the way of the creation of an appropriate war memorial.