A national memorial to fallen journalists conceived in the wake of the deadly June 2018 mass shooting at the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Maryland will have a strong Chicago connection.
The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation announced Wednesday that Chicago-based John Ronan Architects will design the memorial slated to rise at the National Mall in Washington, the culmination of a nearly year-long selection process.
The design concept was chosen from more than 50 proposals, besting four finalists with its vision of transparency and light as the core tenets of a free press.
“We were inspired by his unique and compelling design concept, which calls for the use of transparent materials to convey themes of clarity and light to reinforce the importance of the work of journalists, photojournalists and a free press,” David Dreier, chairman of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation, said in a news release.
John Ronan’s award-winning Chicago work includes the modernist Poetry Foundation building in River North, the colorful Gary Comer Youth Center in Grand Crossing and the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where Ronan is a professor of architecture.
Headed by architecture critic Paul Goldberger, the 10-member selection committee also included former Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.
The memorial will feature layers of transparent elements that will appear different from all three sides of the one-third acre triangular site, which will be located in view of the U.S. Capitol. Funded entirely by private donations, the project is estimated to cost $50 million, with a target completion date of late 2028.
“The memorial will be a journey of discovery that unfolds slowly, space by space, like a story that casts the visitor in the role of investigative journalist,” Ronan said in the news release. “I look forward to working with the foundation to create an inspiring place of remembrance which honors those who have sacrificed their lives in pursuit of the truth and celebrates the First Amendment foundations upon which democracy is built.”
On June 28, 2018, a lone gunman took the lives of five Capital Gazette employees inside the Annapolis newsroom in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in American history. The gunman, Jarrod W. Ramos, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in 2021.
The nonprofit foundation was launched on the one-year anniversary of the newsroom shooting by Dreier, a former congressman and then-chairman of Chicago-based Tribune Publishing, which owned the Capital Gazette at the time.
The foundation was authorized by Congress in December 2020 to build a memorial to fallen journalists on federal land in Washington.
Dreier stepped down as Tribune Publishing chairman in February 2020 — three months after hedge fund Alden Global Capital became the company’s largest shareholder. Alden purchased the Tribune Publishing chain in May 2021 for $633 million.
In January, Alden sold the Baltimore Sun Media Group, including its flagship newspaper and the Capital Gazette, to David Smith, executive chairman of Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, for an undisclosed price.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com