By LOUISE JURY in LONDON
The design for a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, has finally been chosen, four years and 11 months after she died in a car crash in Paris.
Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, announced that a restrained, moat-like water feature would be built in
Hyde Park, near Princess Diana's home at Kensington Palace.
Jowell chose the £3 million ($10 million) tribute after a committee chaired by Rosa Monckton, a friend of the princess, could not decide between two designs.
Jowell studied criteria such as architectural quality and relevance before settling on the plan of London-based architect Neil Porter and his American colleague Kathryn Gustafson. British sculptor Anish Kapoor had proposed a dome of water.
The Porter/Gustafson design features a moat, or oval stone ring, on a gentle slope. Water will flow down in two lanes shallow enough for children to paddle in, converging in a hollow.
Porter said he and Gustafson had been trying to achieve a lasting memorial of restrained elegance "which would welcome people into its heart, much as she did. It would have different meanings for different people and on different days.
"On sunny days, children will paddle and play and chase and race sticks in the shallow water. On a wet day, it will become more contemplative, a space to ride the waves of a diverse world."
The winner was one of 58 designs the committee considered, but found favour with only 1 per cent of 2500 viewers who voted in a television poll. The Kapoor scheme received 2 per cent.
Vivienne Parry, who worked with the Princess, was scathing at the choice. "I think it's nothing. Here was the most celebrated Briton of the last quarter century and this monument is something you'd trip over before you'd realise it's even there. It's the sort of thing you would see in a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. It's not a national monument, it's a national nothing."
- INDEPENDENT
