Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
(406) 638-2622

February 17, 1997

Billings, MT -- Two Pennsylvania designers are the recipients of the $30,000 first place prize in the competition to develop design for a new memorial at Little Bighorn Battlefield to honor the Indians who participated at the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as "Custer's Last Stand."

The National Park Service and the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Advisory Committee announced that John R. Collins and Alison J. Towers of Philadelphia Pennsylvania jointly submitted an entry which received first place; Richard Alan Borkovetz of Albuquerque, New Mexico took the $15,000 second place prize; and Robert Lundgren, also of Philadelphia, received the $5,000 third place award. A jury composed of advisory committee members, which includes artists, architects, historians and community leaders, judged the entries last week. Over 550 entries were submitted in the competition.

The winning design consists of a circular plaza "gathering place" surrounded by an earthen berm which is open for entry ways. A broad platform supporting bronze figures representing Indian warriors, would rest on the berm. The design also connects with the existing 7th Cavalry monument with an unseen axis connecting the center of ther Indian memorial with the center of the 7th Cavalry monument. The axis "cuts" through the earthen wall and represents a "weeping wound" which symbolizes the conflict of the two worlds. "Two large posts straddle the gap and form a spirit gate (not for passage of visitors) to welcome the Cavalry dead and to symbolize the mutual understanding of the infinite all the dead possess," according to the design statement submitted with the entry.

The winning entry drew praise form the competition jury for its compatibility with the high plains landscape of the battlefield, for its use of earthen berm which symbolize Indian Mounds, and for its use of wooden poles, which give the memorial visibility form great distance but does not detract from the landscape or over-power the existing monument which honors Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and members of the 7th Cavalry.

The second place design, a series of stainless steel poles set in a circular design evocative of a tipi, also drew praise form the jury. In particular, the jury was impressed by the sculptural quality of the design, and by its use of wind, which wold move across the top of the stainless steel poles and produce flute sounds. "Giving the expression to the wind is appropriate; it is the female wind that carries the souls of warriors to heaven," the jury commented.

The third place design offered three stone arches, thrusting 35 to 40 feet skyward and toward the center of the memorial site, but do not connect. The stone arches, or plinths, symbolize the three tribes that participated in the battle. Beneath the arches would lie a stone paving in the shape of a buffalo hide and with a victory symbol at its center. "The fact that the arches never meet leaves something to the imagination. The forms try to reach further--to the sky. They are reminiscent of natural forms fond in the Black Hills and along the Missouri River," the jury said. The jury also selected six honorable mentions: the design team lead by Herbe Fricke, Portland, Oregon; Peter Kindel, Chicago, Illinois; the design team from the University of Oregon, led by John S. Reynolds; Mark L. Goodman, of North Miami Beach, Florida; Michael Stewart of Crow Agency, Montana; and John Buenz, Chicago, Illinois.

The conclusion of the jury's work brings the Indian memorial project at Little Bighorn one step closer to construction. The jury's findings will be forwarded to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who must make the final selection of the new memorial's design.

The memorial was authorized by Congress in 1991 in legislation sponsored by then Colorado Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and former Montana Rep. Pat Williams. The legislation also authorized a name change for the battlefield, from Custer Battlefield National Monument to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

The National Part Foundation--formed in 1967 by Congress to raise private support for park projects--supplied the prize money for the design competition and will take the lead in raising funds for the construction of the memorial.

The jury also selected 126 entries which it recommends for inclusion in a public exhibit which will travel throughout the country in the coming two years. That exhibit will open in Billings on February 18, and will travel in March to the Colorado History Museum in Denver.

The jury was composed of AArthurAmiotte, a Sioux artist and adjunct professor of Native Studies and Art at Brandon University; Paul Hutton, Ph.D., professor of history at the University of Mew Mexico; A Gay Kingman, a Lakota educator and director of public relations for the National Indian Gaming Association; Richard Pohl, a landscape architect at Montana State University; Crow artist Kevin Red Star; Carol Redcherries, chief justice for the Northern Cheyenne Appellate Court, and Northern Arapahoe architect Dennis Sun Rhodes, of AmerINDIAN Architecture, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Robert Burley, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and partner in the Burley Partnership of Waitsfield, Vermont, supervised the jury's work, and advised the National Park Service throughout the design competition.

Other members of the advisory committee include chairman Leonard Bruguier, Ph.D., who is Director of the Institute of American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota; Donald Malnourie, of White Shield, North Dakota, who is a descendant of the Arikara scouts who accompanied Custer into battle June 25-26, 1876; Linda Pease, Crow artist and educator of Lodge Grass, Montana, and Sioux activist Chauncey Whitright, chairman of the Strong Heart Society.

5 February 1998, lrb