Design
The design of the building is designed in the classical Egyptian Revival style of architecture with a limestone exterior. The foundation was constructed using sawed granite, and the exterior ground level walls are made of Bedford stone. The main doors at the top of a large set of stairs are made from ornamental bronze, and the walls of the first floor lobby are finished in Kasota stone, which was quarried in Kasota, Minnesota. The first floor corridor and the grand stairway are finished in travertine that was imported from Italy. The floors of the corridors and stairway treads are made from terrazzo and Kasota marble, and the balusters and railing are made from Italian travertine and Italian tavernelle clairemarble.
At night, the top of the memorial tower emits steam illuminated by bright orange lights. This effect creates the illusion of a burning pyre and can be seen for some distance.
In 1981, the building underwent a major renovation which updated existing systems to modern code specifications.
The grounds were designed by George Kessler who had rocketed to fame on the strength of his City Beautiful design for the Kansas City park and boulevard system. The road on the west side of the Memorial is Kessler Road.
Read more about this topic: Liberty Memorial
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Joe ... you remember I said you wouldn’t be cheated?... Nobody is really. Eventually all things work out. There’s a design in everything.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)