From the proposal to design to construction to opening day, the new memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. has been 15 years in the making. On Nov. 12, 1996, President Clinton signed legislation proposing a memorial honoring King in D.C. Four years later, ROMA Design President Boris Dramov and Principal Landscape Architect Bonnie Fisher won an international design competition hosted by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Foundation, and 10 years later, Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin finished building the 28-foot-tall white granite statue.
In Dramov and Fisher’s design, visitors pass through the “mountain of despair” to reach the “stone of hope,” on which King’s face is etched. “You enter through strife and you are able to achieve higher levels of social equity and democracy,” Fisher said.
The pair originally left King’s body incomplete to let the viewer complete the image. However, that aspect of the design was later changed by the foundation. In the finished monument, King has his arms crossed and is wearing a suit.
King is also designed to protrude from the landscape. The design incorporates the surrounding cherry trees — which bloom every year around the anniversary of King’s death on April 4 — and imitates the shape of the Tidal Basin where it is located. “He used so much of the landscape language in his speeches that were very powerful and evocative,” which the design duo felt was important to reflect, Dramov said.
After the design was completed, the process became the source of controversy when the job of sculpting and building the $120 million monument was given to Yixin and Chinese masons, rather than U.S. masons. Some even accused the foundation of seeking money from the Chinese government in exchange for giving the job to a Chinese artist.
The monument arrived from China in August 2010 and took 10 months to assemble on site.
Representatives of the foundation and the National Park Service did not return requests for comment. – Rachel Baye
