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Darth Vader Sculpture on Washington National Cathedral
Michael Breeden writes "Star Wars has apparently taken another step in becoming part of our national history. The Washington National Cathedral, during its expansion, has placed a sculpture of Darth Vader's head into the carvings around one of the exterior arches. This space is normally reserved for grotesques (gargoyles), and ol' Darth seems to have fit the bill. "
Mirros:
8 /http://w ww.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/darth.shtml
r xapSYQmgC: www.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/darth.shtml+& hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Archive.org mirror:
http://web.archive.org/web/2002060718373
Google archive:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:1i
Not much faster, though. Wasn't this posted a long time ago?
The national cathedral has many unique gargoyles, that's typical of the medieval style actually. Since many of them could never be seen except (in the pre-binocular/telescope age) the carvers, they could sculpt bosses they hated, cultural figures, politicians, etc. There was an issue of Smithsonian magazine that described some of them (the artists were left to their own will, mostly, on what they could put up there). There's undoubtedly a number more of these little "easter eggs" put in those doing the construction.
And it's a nice complement to the chunk of moon rock in the 'creation' stained glass window there also.
There was a competition for children to design a bit of sculpture for the cathedral. Personally, I think this choice is great: I suspect it's high and out-of-the-way enough, and similar enough to other random gargoyles, that you'll miss it unless you look carefully and think, "Hey, wait a minute..."
I also enjoyed their rationale. Heh. It's even sort of true, if you replace "evil" with "mythical monsters".
"Centuries ago, on our cathedrals, grotesques were intended to symbolize the evil that existed outside the church. Today, Darth Vader is an excellent example of evil in our times."
As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
FTA:
As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Darth Vader Drawing
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
To see pics, go here Google Image Search
You can also search on 'cathedral kid' in Google Images, the kid that drew it is about half way down.
This isn't exactly news. This was done at least ten years ago. Darth Vader is a standard depiciton of evil. There is also a grotesque of Adolf Hitler on one of the towers at the National Cathedral (I live about a mile away from it...)
For those that want to read the article but can't due to the slashdotting...
Darth Vader It's slow, but works,
Link brought to you by archive.org
Then here's the text only version...
About Darth Vader As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Darth Vader Drawing (img.)
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
Newspaper Clipping (img.)
Darth Vader Location (img.)
To Find Darth Vader you have to leave the building through the ramp entrance. This is located at the northwest corner of the nave, through the double wooden doors of Lincoln Bay. Go down the ramp, and step into the parking lot. Then, turn around and look back up at the tower closest to you. He is almost impossible to see without the assistance of binoculars.
Way way way up, almost at the top of the tower is a gablet, or small peaked roof, located between the two huge louvered arches. At the bottom of each slope of this gablet is a carved grotesque. Darth Vader is on the north, or right-hand, side. There is a carved skull situated on a gablet much closer to the ground which many people often mistake for Darth Vader. From this skull, Darth Vader is up and to the left.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson