The controversial proposal for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial now has a new component: a smartphone app, which, according to the memorial’s designers, visitors will be able to use on-site to “contextualize Eisenhower’s impact” and view historical and biographical content. Postmodern “starchitect” Frank Gehry’s plans for the monument have been mired in controversy since they were unveiled. And while the impulse to harness cutting-edge technology is admirable, the need for a supplementary “E- Memorial” highlights exactly what is wrong with the design: The physical monument does not reflect the man it purports to commemorate.

The $142 million proposal calls for ten colossal, unadorned 80-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide columns to support the monument’s most striking feature: vast woven metal billboards, enclosing the four acre site and bearing images of the Kansas landscape. These partitions would frame a central depiction of Eisenhower as a cadet (an improvement, perhaps, on the original plan to portray him as a young boy), flanked by stacked megaliths at odd angles and two other portraits.