In celebration of National Medal of Honor Day, NBC’s Today Show interviewed Medal of Honor recipients, Lieutenant Colonel Will Swenson and Major General Pat Brady, on the construction of the new National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington Texas.
Designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, the new Museum will be dedicated to commemorating and preserving the stories of more than 3,500 recipients of the nation’s highest medal for valor in combat and will be set in a five-acre tranquil landscape with 25,000 square feet of exhibition galleries, a state-of-the-art Education Center, conference and event space, and an outdoor amphitheater for ceremonies.
The Museum’s design, a slab-like volume fabricated from steel and seemingly suspended in mid-air, was inspired by a heavy slab of metal in Rafael Viñoly Architects’ model studio in New York City. Lifting the dense and daunting slab made Rafael Viñoly, the firm’s principal and lead designer, to think of the heavy burdens the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces must carry for the rest of the country. The strength of steel – forged in fire – is akin to the strength of our armed forces, which is forged in the heat of battle.
Watch the full interview here.
