October 30 – November 9, 2002

Soon after the Pentagon was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, Congress authorized the Secretary of Defense to establish a permanent memorial on the Pentagon grounds. This mission was then handed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which worked with the Museum to present the first set of competition entries in the Great Hall just after the one-year anniversary of the attack. More than 1,000 architects, artists, designers, school children, and members of the general public from around the world submitted concepts for a Pentagon Memorial. More than 80 of those entries were selected for display at the Museum. The memorial concepts represented an enormous range of ideas and powerfully felt responses to this tragedy.