Site Selection

Centralia, PA - A local disaster in "Anytown, USA." Centralia is currently a ghost town after 45 years of an uncontrollable underground coal mine fire rendered it uninhabitable. It is a short drive away and representative of disasters on a small scale, not to mention incredibly bizarre and fascinating. I am not quite sure of how safe it is to make a short visit here, so the power of monument here is questionable. It would be greatly valuable in terms of sustainability; perhaps the energy produced by this disaster could be utilized and transported to surrounding towns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia%2C_Pennsylvania

Monument Valley - A vast stretch of land in Utah named for its monumental stone buttes. This is representative of beautiful uninhabited land with more than enough space to implement an alternative energy farm of pv or wind turbines. No one would go out of their way to visit a lonely solar farm, but this setting brings plenty of visitors.

Gettysburg, PA - Famous for its fierce battles during the Civil War and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, it is a gorgeous small town littered with hundreds/thousands of monuments of all scales. Gburg is a very important part of our nation's history and brings tourists from all over the country, especially relatively uninterested school children. There is no definitive monument here, all the classical gestures blend together after hours of traversing the bucolic landscape. One of the most popular destinations is the boulder outcropping known as devil's den; named for its particularly difficult battle setting for strategy, surprise, and snipery. The program proposal is a visitors center/monument that would bring a modern and sustainably built twist in a classical setting. John mentioned its intention would be similar to Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial in DC, an "antimonument." Gettysburg is a similar to small town's across the country; beautiful land that is being overdeveloped and commercialized. There is even talk of a large casino that would drastically alter the town. People here likely know little about sustainability, it is the land of vinyl siding and huge trucks outside of its beautiful historic center.

Washington DC - The seat of our government modeled after the most monumental of ancient cities. My investigations into sustainability are based on the root causes of unsustainable living, not simply green building tactics. Money and power are the root of how our society functions, and government has unmatchable power in bringing and supporting sustainable initiatives. Govt instituations that can help sustainability such as the EPA are highly inefficient and unorganized, it is a relatively new organization with a foundation of assuming its existence is temporary. Past governments expressed their ideals and power through monument, a monumental gesture signifying our government's vested interest in sustainability would be appropriate and powerful here. This would primarily be a monumental building with the possibility of an integrated monument for the public.

World Trade Center - If anything today is worth a memorial/monument, this is it. The greatest act of terrorism we have ever seen needs remembering and the emotions are still raw. Things are slow going on the current buildings and memorial. The memorial has drawn a lot of criticism, its cost (of 1 billion dollars) is double its budget, and it will cost the city $40M a year to maintain. David Childs' Freedom Tower is barely a whisper of the original design's beauty and monumentality and has been plagued by compromise, political intervention, and inneficiency. The new WTC should be the height of monumental building. If this were sustainable, it would be a testament to our goal of energy independence. Severing our reliance on the middle east would be a stronger blow in the "war on terror" than any military occupation.

New Orleans - This is the site of one of the worst hurricane disasters in history. Hundreds of deaths, an entire city destroyed, thousands displaced, and political apathy on an unimaginable scale, the name Katrina stirs up emotions whenever mentioned. The disaster should be signified, the dead should be memorialized. There is debate that these megastorms are a result of global warming, drawing a correlation to sustainability in this site.