The construction of a new war memorial for the United States Military Academy at West Point is an important occasion for both the institution and for the country, and it must embody the qualities for which the place and its people have become synonymous: honor, dedication, sacrifice. The massive stone enclosure of Cullum Hall provides the ideal location for such a memorial, and our proposal, which occupies and augments the Pershing Room, is conceived of as a sort of vessel, a silent container for contemplation and a vehicle for the projection of thought both into the past and into the future.
The memorial is formally straightforward and draws its basic geometry and arrangement from the Pershing Room itself. Two sets of roughly symmetrical walls are situated on either side of the entry and, through the continuous curve of their base condition, flow directly into the raised floor to create one uninterrupted surface that defines the enclosure of the memorial. Breaks and misalignments in these walls allow for both physical and visual connections to be made to the existing architecture and to the interstitial space that is thus created. The vertical walls to the left hand side of the entry contain the names of the West Point alumni killed in the line of duty, are categorized by war and give the viewer an immediate sense of orientation and of the scale of each war effort. The walls to the right are intentionally left blank, an open receptacle for future names. The visitor is thus enfolded within the memorial, charting the course of West Point (and of the United States) over its first two hundred years as he examines the assembled names and sensing the continuous flow of history, literally passing through him to the other side of the memorial: a clear reminder of the gravity of their commitment to those that have made it, a momento mori to those who have not.
Each component of the Culllum Hall Cenotaph has been considered from several perspectives to determine its appropriateness in terms of durability, constructability and cost effectiveness as well as the metaphorical, visual and tactile qualities that it contributes to the composition.
Like a silent sentinel, the Cullum Hall Cenotaph bears witness to those who have died bringing honor to West Point, to the difficulties of war and to the ephemerality of human life. It also passes along to current and future generations the obligation to uphold and preserve the qualities that are in such abundant evidence on the West Point campus.
