State College, PA 16801 One of the important functions of memorial architecture is its capacity to dramatically commemorate events, individuals or significant cultural conditions. Using form, material and architectonic construct, memorials remind and inform us. They concretize memory and enable the past to endure.
John Lucas, Architect has been involved with the design of significant memorials including the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., having won the national design competition for that memorial in 1989 (with colleagues Don Leon, Veronica Burns Lucas and Eliza Pennypacker). He is also the architect of the World War Two Memorial at the Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg, PA and the restoration of the World War One Memorial on the same site. In addition, John Lucas has designed a Veterans Memorial for Lime Ridge, PA and memorial garden-parks in Chesapeake City, MD (The Pell Gardens) and Selma, AL (The Songs of Selma Park at the site from which Martin Luther King Jr. began the famous march to Montgomery.) Further, he has designed individual monuments for cemetery sites.
Commemorative architecture or memorial design requires the formation of archetypal conditions in the landscape and the utilization of lasting materials. It evokes through literal messages and subtle representations.
