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The Columbus Lighthouse
| Article
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18779 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
2,347 Words |
| Author
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Mark Holston
Mark Holston writes about Latin American issues for Américas,
Seis Continentes, Hispanic, and other international
publications. The author wishes to thank InterContinental
Hotels in S‹o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro for their assistance in
making this report possible. |
In 1929, six decades before work would begin to translate his visionary plans into concrete reality, British architect J.L. Gleave vividly captured the spirit of the Dominican Republic's bold memorial to Christopher Columbus: Imagine the first sight of the Lighthouse from the air--a tremendous cross carved out of the ground--a single idea carried out on a vast scale--the New World signed with the sign of the cross ... at night, the parallel theme of Columbus and modern progress is expressed in light, by floodlighting of the main mass, contrasting with the vertical sheets of light rising from the canyons of Columbus. On cloudy nights, the Columbus cross will reflect on the sky--a giant hovering over the historic halfway point between the two American continents, making the resting place of Columbus, where he wished his bones to lie.
Although Gleave would not live to see his design take shape on Santo Domingo's flat coastal plain--the project was delayed for years by political and social crises and a lack of funds--his grand scheme today stands precisely as if he had supervised the construction himself. Yet the recent completion of the memorial lighthouse, just in time for the 1992 observance of five centuries of Spanish presence in the Western Hemisphere, comes precisely as Columbus' legacy is under increasingly critical review. Yet, for Dominicans and others alike on both sides of the debate over Columbus' relevance in 1992, the monument is an effective symbol.
Resolution and controversy
To Joaquin Balaguer, the Dominican Republic's 84-year-old, six-term president, and to a host of government officials and Dominican intellectuals, the lighthouse is testimony to their small country's resolve to take a leadership role in maintaining stewardship of the Western Hemisphere's Columbian legacy and many of the colonial era's most treasured archives. After all, Columbus' first outpost was established on Hispaniola's northern coast, and just two years later, his brother Bartolome founded Santo Domingo, the republic's capital and the oldest continually inhabited European city in the New World. What better place to celebrate the achievements of the man who brought the cross of Christianity and the reign of Spanish culture to a virgin land.
Viewed strictly in terms of its architectural significance, few can question the success of the project. "The monumental work of art will be known as the Colossus of Rhodes of the Americas," Egypt's minister of tourism speculated in an address in 1987, just after work on the project had begun in earnest.
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