An excerpt from an email I received about the opening of Atlanta's new "monument", the Millennium Gate:
The Millennium Gate, which is located at the Atlantic Station in downtown Atlanta, is a 73-foot arch that will celebrate the history of Georgia.
What is the Millennium Gate? It's a monument-like thingy that's been built in the middle of Atlantic Station (the shopping center built where the Atlantic Steel mill used to be). Its website is full of high-minded speechifying about how it's the largest monument built in the US since the Jefferson Memorial.
I think it more appropriately celebrates the history of Atlanta rather than Georgia as a whole. Atlanta, a city where we tear down beautiful buildings constructed of real stone and brick so we can put up cheap condos made of faux materials.
Why? Well, because the Millennium Gate is partially constructed with... stucco. Over foamboard. Quite a monument for the ages. As one writer to the AJC's editorial page said:
[...]
The Millennium Gate is a selfish exhibition of form over substance, replete with the puffery of a Latin inscription and made in part of stucco, a construction material found more often in faux suburban mansions than enduring monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe.
I love grand artistic statement, bold landmarks that spring from creativity and design in tune with the surroundings. In all its pomposity, the Millennium Gate is out of whack with Midtown Atlanta. The front-page photo says it all: a flip-flop-shod foot with the monument in the background. Banal fashion meets banal art. ED HULA, Atlanta
Its design really is out of place in AS. Piedmont Park or somewhere downtown would be a much better place.