A University of Arkansas graduate has won an international competition to design a World War I memorial that will be built in Washington, D.C.
Joseph Weishaar, a 2013 graduate of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, submitted his design, The Weight of Sacrifice, after the World War I Centennial Commission opened the competition in May 2015.
The design was chosen as one of five finalists from more than 360 submissions and was selected as the winner Monday. He received a $25,000 prize for being a finalist.
Weishaar, a 25-year-old Fayetteville native who works as an architect for Brininstool+Lynch in Chicago, worked with New York sculptor Sabin Howard and will lead a team of landscape designers and engineers from around the country to complete the $30 million memorial.
Commissioners said contestants submitted their final designs in December 2015 after consulting with representatives from the Centennial Commission, the National Parks Service, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission.
The site for the memorial will be at Pershing Park on the corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown D.C. It is expected to be completed by 2018, according to the commission's website.
Congress established the Centennial Commission in 2013 and authorized it to establish a national World War I memorial a year later.
See Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full coverage.
