Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial | Boston Common | Downtown

The first two of the remaining submissions are too big, obnoxiously so. Where's the blowback from all the park advocates who never hesitate to criticize even the tiniest proposed changes?
The hands are the clear winner. They are universal, easily understood, and representative of everyone, staying far away from even a whiff of the corrosive divisiveness of identity politics.
 
Found some more angles to better show this. Added the hands first cuz thats probably the one. Its clear now that the monument is hugging/embracing, especially now with the people hugging under it. When people had explained when I asked before what this represents its clear now they werent sure either. Thats why I think its important to get better views, so we know what were supporting here, it makes sense now and I still think its the frontrunner.

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They're all kind of bad, aren't they? Like overgrown corporate office park landscaping stuff.
 
Lol. Yup. It would at least have been better if when they asked for submissions they ensured none of the proposals would be too large in scale to ever have a chance. Out of everything that was “selected as finalists”, only two have any chance of ever getting put here. Not much of a selection, then, eh?
 
Should include a statue of MLK similar to the one in Washington, DC. :cool:
 
People will fall of the "edge" into the "ravine,"

twist an ankle or suffer a herniated disc–and sue the City.
 
Is there a greater tragedy here in that none of these pieces will be in dialogue with the majestic humanity of the Robert Gould Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial just up the steps?

(Or am I missing something here?)

For example, if Frederick Hart were still alive, he could've been commissioned to do a version of his Vietnam Trio, in all of its wrenching, angst-stirring nobility... but instead, he could've been tasked with MLK leading the vanguard of one the historic marches, hand-in-hand with his key deputies.

Now that would be in dialogue with the 54th/Robert Gould Shaw memorial.

Instead, the idiocy of all of this steroidally-monumental abstraction. MLK's courage--nay, insane bravery--in the face of the brutality of the apartheid state was real. Indeed, it was truly heroic. Why not depict it, as an inspiration for the ages?

(My apologies if this observation has been made up-thread; I haven't followed all of this...)
 
sorry but all the proposals are "horrible" to be honest & polite.

Make the competition International
 
They seem either rushed, trying too hard, or out of place. The bridge is actually pretty nice... for a bridge, I have no idea what that has to do with MLK though.
 
stick n move said:
They seem either rushed, trying too hard, or out of place. The bridge is actually pretty nice... for a bridge, I have no idea what that has to do with MLK though.
Click to expand...

The bridge is the nicest, I think, but it obviously can't go here. It would be a decent monumental piece if the Common were twenty times bigger, but won't ever happen here, and shouldn't.

Totally agree the whole thing seems rushed. They should 1) really decide if this is the place for the memorial, and why; then, 2) restart the competition and design the inclusion criteria to only allow submissions that have a chance to be built here.
 
They should put some sort of ramp near the Shaw memorial and an extension of the sidewalk on Beacon street for accessibility reasons. That kind of improvement doesn't need to be nearly as large as some of these proposed installations.
 
Yeah, not a surprise. The safest and best option. I wish the competition was a little better. Oh well.

I'm curious to see how it turns out.
 
I just hope the whole thing works better in reality than it looks like in those renderings.
 
I suppose this won't require as much upkeep as some of the others...but until the city actually devotes adequate resources to the common it will continue to look like the poor step child to the doted upon public garden. As with almost everything in Boston, it's not the capital investment so much as the maintenance commitment.
 
Not a lot of love for the interlocking hands. I'm going on emotion and not facts (obviously) but it might change the landscape of the Public Garden a little bit. Maybe not a lot but it'll give it a kick.
 
I get your point, but to nitpick, it's going in the Common, not the Public Garden.
 
I think it adds nice color to an overall monochromatic park.
 
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