Construction
Ground was broken in September 2001. The construction was managed by the General Services Administration.
Sculptor Raymond Kaskey created the bronze eagles and wreaths that were installed under the arches, as well as 24 bronze bas-relief panels that depict wartime scenes of combat and the home front. The bronzes were cast over the course of two and a half years at Laran Bronze in Chester, Pennsylvania. The stainless-steel armature that holds up the eagles and wreaths was designed at Laran, in part by sculptor James Peniston, and fabricated by Apex Piping of Newport, Delaware.
The John Stevens Shop designed a typeface for the memorial and most of the inscriptions were hand-carved in situ.
The memorial opened to the public on April 29, 2004, and was dedicated in a May 29 ceremony attended by thousands of people. The memorial became a national park on November 1, when authority over it was transferred to the National Park Service.
Read more about this topic: National World War II Memorial
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)