Atlantan to Oversee Design of Adams Memorial

WASHINGTON — Atlanta architectural designer Rodney M. Cook Jr. has been named to coordinate the design of a memorial for former Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and their wives.

It likely will consist of a "modest library in a garden," said Benjamin Adams, a New York investment banker and fourth great-grandson of John Adams, the nation's first vice president and second president.

"We feel tremendously fortunate to have Rodney Cook involved in this project," said Adams, who is president of the Adams Memorial Foundation, designated by Congress to build the memorial.

Adams said the foundation's board of directors had been "tremendously impressed" by Cook's work on the Olympics Monument and the Millennium Monument in Atlanta, as well as his design of the Cropsey Gallery of Art in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

"What he is interested in, in terms of capturing the spirit of architecture from more of a classical period in the United States, seemed to fit with what we are trying to do," Adams said.

Cook's role will be to coordinate a competition among architects to come up with a concept that carries out the foundation's ideas, Adams said.

The memorial will honor John Adams; his wife, Abigail Smith Adams; their son John Quincy Adams, the nation's sixth president, and his wife, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams.

The concept of a library in a garden stems in part from John Adams's lifelong devotion to the writings of the Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero.

"Cicero's great idea of heaven was a library in a garden," Benjamin Adams said.

Although the foundation has not formally chosen a site, the memorial likely will be on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House.

A location on the Capitol Mall, along with monuments to the Vietnam War, World War II and Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt was not possible because the mall has been declared closed to additional memorials.

The 49-year-old Cook says he abhors the designs of most modern buildings, and his work, including the Olympics monument, is sometimes controversial.

He is not an architect, but working with architect Peter Polites, he has designed a number of buildings and is working to preserve crumbling czarist Russian mansions, which he considers world treasures.

"If I had studied architecture, having a teacher tell me that what I regarded as beautiful was of no significance to Western culture any longer would mean I would not have done well in that class," he said in a telephone interview.

"Designing buildings I abhor would be a very difficult intellectual pursuit for me," he added.

A 2001 bill signed into law by President Bush notes that there is no monument in Washington to John Adams, a Massachusetts lawyer and farmer who is regarded by most historians as the leader of the Second Continental Congress in 1776 and a driving force for independence.

"The time has come to correct this oversight so that future generations of Americans will know and understand the preeminent historical and lasting significance to the nation of his contributions and those of his family," the bill stated.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., who is no longer a member of Congress. Roemer serves on the Adams Memorial Foundation board of directors. David McCullough, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Adams, also is a member of the board.

A television miniseries based on McCullough's book, "John Adams," has been produced by Tom Hanks and is to air next year.