Completed in 1962, this Modern memorial structure was designed by Austrian-born architect Alfred Preis to memorialize those who died in the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, sitting above the remains of the USS Arizona, where 1,102 of the 1,177 victims of the attack were lost, remaining entombed within the ship.  During World War II, the superstructure of the Arizona that remained above the waterline was mostly removed, with a flagpole being erected atop the sunken ship in 1950, with a temporary memorial being created above the remains of the deckhouse.  In December of 1955, a ten-foot-tall basalt stone with a plaque was placed over the mid-ship deckhouse as a permanent memorial, while plans to build a larger memorial to those who died in the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor were approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958.  The concrete memorial, completed in 1962, is a 184-foot-long structure, which is tallest at the ends with an arch descending towards the center, featuring a geometric roof with seven openings on the top broken by horizontal ribs, and seven openings on the sides, an opening in the floor surrounded by a railing that allows visitors a view of the remains of the USS Arizona below, an entrance area with a low ceiling that creates a sense of compression when entering the memorial, with the assembly hall of the memorial and the shrine portion of the memorial at the opposite end from the entrance area have a “release” effect with higher and open ceilings.  In the shrine, there are two openings featuring the “Tree of Life” sculpture flanking a marble-clad wall with the names of those killed in the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, with the marble wall being especially sensitive to the humid and salty air of the site, necessitating its replacement twice - in 1984 and 2014.  The entire memorial structure cantilevers over the USS Arizona below, hovering above the ship, but not touching it.  The memorial was subsequently listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, and the USS Arizona itself was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1989, though the memorial does not share the same status or National Register listing.  The memorial sits as a major landmark in Hawaii and has been visited by every sitting United States president since its opening, with presidents presenting a wreath and scattering flowers in the waters above the USS Arizona in honor of those who died in on December 7, 1941.  In 2016, the memorial was visited by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom paid his respects to those who had died in the attack, the first Japanese prime minister to do so, serving as a gesture of reconciliation between the two nations 75 years after the attack.  Today, the memorial is run jointly by the United States Navy and National Park Service, and sees more than one million visitors every year.
w_lemay
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