Michael Brice-Saddler at The Washington Post
At first glance, the design renderings of a new memorial planned for the National Mall appear to show hundreds of large, rectangular glass prisms arranged almost at random. A closer look, however, reveals the truth. A bird’s-eye view shows that the glass prisms, 300 in all, coalesce from the outside in to form a 9-foot-tall cylindrical space — creating the epicenter of what will be D.C.’s first public memorial to celebrate press freedom and honor the journalists who have been slain while doing their jobs. The concept designs, released Monday by the foundation backing the project, come as part of a lengthy but necessary regulatory process before the anticipated completion of the Fallen Journalists Memorial in 2028.
…
The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation was launched in 2019, one year after a gunman shot and killed five employees at the Capital Gazette, then owned by Tribune Publishing, in Annapolis. David Dreier, the former congressman and chair of Tribune Publishing, started the foundation and said he was inspired to seek the memorial after the deadly Gazette shooting and upon the realization that the Newseum — a former D.C. museum dedicated to journalism — was shutting down.
Congress approved the memorial in 2020, and the foundation last year got a thumbs-up from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts to come up with its design. In the coming months, the Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning commissions will offer feedback on the design — which could change — before it can move forward, said Barbara Cochran, the foundation’s president. The National Park Service will issue a construction permit once that approval is granted and the foundation raises 110 percent of the money necessary for its construction. The memorial is funded entirely by private donations, and its founders say they so far have raised and have commitments totaling $23 million, about 46 percent of a $50 million goal that includes construction costs and money for an endowment that will be used to maintain the memorial and create educational programming and events.