Design competition for National Mall

on Friday,September 09,2011 21:09

A new design competition is underway for three different sections of the National Mall in Washington D.C., according to the Associated Press.

Designers will be asked to transform Union Square, Washington Monument grounds, or the Constitution Gardens at the Lincoln Memorial. They will have until April 2012 to showcase their creations, and the winners will be announced in May, according to the media outlet.

Since this past May, there has been an effort to raise $350 million to be put into the Mall. The president of the nonprofit National Mall Group, Caroline Cunningham, explained that the by setting up the $875,000 design competition, it allows her to raise additional funds for separate projects.

"It's an exciting crossroads ... designing and creating for the next 100 years is very humbling and exciting for us," Cunningham told the news source. "We plan to do it in a phased way so we're not raising $350 million tomorrow but over a period of time. I think it's very realistic."

According to the Sacramento Bee, Cunningham also stated that this plan is the fourth one since the creation of the Mall, more than 220 years ago