Creating a memorial to the horrors of World War I

Over the past 40 years, memorials to America's 20th century wars have sprung up across Washington, D.C., with one conspicuous omission: There was no national memorial to veterans of World War I in our nation's capital.

"If you ask anybody on the streets where the World War I memorial is in D.C., most of them will point you to the D.C. Veterans Memorial," said Joe Weishaar. "For a long time people assumed that it was the national memorial. But the little rotunda that's there is only to district residents."

In 2015, Weishaar was a 25-year-old intern at a Chicago architecture firm when he heard about an open design competition for D.C.'s first national World War I memorial. "I set up a shelf in my closet, I set my computer on the shelf, and that was my office," he said. "I was doing this, like, in nights and weekends after work."