U of A Alumnus Joe Weishaar, 25, Wins WWI Memorial Design Competition

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A portion of the winning WWI Memorial design. Courtesy WWI Memorial Design Competition.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Joseph Weishaar, a 2013 graduate of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and the Honors College, has won the international competition to design a World War I memorial in Washington, D.C. Weishaar, originally from Fayetteville, is currently a project architect with Brininstool+Lynch in Chicago.

The award was announced today. It is hoped that the memorial, “The Weight of Sacrifice,” will be ready in November 2018, to mark the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War I.

The finished project is expected to cost $30-$35 million, to be raised from private funds, and will be located in Pershing Park, a 1.8-acre park on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital.

Weishaar’s design combines modern landscape design with neoclassical memorial elements. It calls for the creation of a raised central lawn supported on three sides by walls. The walls feature bas-relief sculptures of scenes from the war, punctuated by quotations from war leaders, politicians and soldiers.

(r) Joseph Weishaar and (l) Sabin Howard. Courtesy WWI Memorial Design Competition

Weishaar designed “The Weight of Sacrifice” with Sabin Howard, a sculptor in New York. The full professional team needed to implement the design concept includes the Baltimore architectural firm GWWO Inc.; Phoebe Lickwar, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of Arkansas; and engineering consultants Henry Adams LLC, Keast & Hood and VBH.

 The design was one of more than 350 submissions in the competition for the project, commissioned by the United States World War One Centennial Commission.