Washington Monument now "more approachable," says AP

April 05, 2006 1:10 PM

In landscape architect Laurie Olin’s mind, the approach to the most soaring of the capital’s monuments had to be friendly and simple – and safe, says the breaking story from the AP wire.

In addition to “anti-terrorism design measures,” softer lighting and more benches “that lend themselves to comfort and sociability” were placed around the monument’s base.

“It looks like a pillow,” said a nearby tourist sitting on one of the benches, “so it tells you how you should feel.”

This is funny/ironic to me.

When I was writing The Power of Approachability two years ago, I considered using the metaphor “monument” throughout the book.

Then a few of my editors (thank you, Todd Brockdorff and Andy Masters!) told me to remove the term since monuments are, in fact, UNapproachable.

But this new image (along with the pic @ the top of today’s post) come from designer Laurie Olin’s Landscaping Plan, which is pretty amazing. Now, I don’t know if it really looks like a pillow; but it IS nice to see The US Government trying to increase the friendliness and approachability of their monuments. Hey, with any luck, maybe it’ll rub off on some of their employees too.