In another part of the world where the locals are tsk-tsking, the good people of Atlanta aren't feeling so great about Rodney Cook Jr.'s contribution to the city: "an 82-foot limestone arch embellished with Latin inscriptions and bronze sculptures" found right next to a major freeway running through the town. Unfortunately, while Cook's intentions were to class up Atlanta with some
classical monument-ism, the locals aren't having it, thinking it looks a bit too tacky, calling it a "kitschy McMonument" and "the Arche d'IKEA." So since we provided a lesson in that last post, here's one for this occasion: if you're going to spend $20-million on a big arch in the middle of a city, it's probably better to do it in an already classy area, since "between the freeway and the Target" probably isn't already swimming in culture. Better to do it in between the big, fancy mansions and the monocle factory. Or just do it in Europe, where they love that stuff. Here's a bit:

Within contemporary American architectural circles -- where many are concerned about declining infrastructure, inadequate transportation and retrofitting of buildings to make them more energy-efficient -- there is deep suspicion of neoclassical monuments.

"Do we really need that kind of grandeur?" said Kirk Savage, associate professor of history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. "It's a little self-defeating to represent your city moving forward into the future with a nostalgic return to the past -- especially if it's a past that never really existed in the first place."