The World War II memorial opened a few years ago, after we were no longer living in DC.  However, I have been to DC a number of times for various work tasks and have had a chance to visit it before.  It is a very large memorial and impresses you with the scale of itself which is probably appropriate given the scale of the conflict and the loss of life it represents.

There are two halves to the memorial, one representing the Pacific conflict and the other the Atlantic.  Each of the states are represented on columns around the site and there are several water features.  On a hot day, the large expanses of light colored stone can make the temperature a little hard after a while so the running water and the areas of shade can be a welcome respite.

The whole design is very classical in its approach.  Whether this is a reflection of the response to previous monuments to conflicts on the Mall or whether it is just what seemed appropriate to those selecting the bidding architects I don’t know.  I think it works well and sometimes you don’t have to be different.  Since the whole installation is so large, a classical approach seems quite appropriate.  It is interesting that it took so long for this memorial to be built but now it is there, it adds an appropriate element to the Mall.