Travel Forum - Traveler Mania

Outgoing president Alan García wanted to leave Peru a surprise and hoped a 120-foot statue of Christ would protect Lima. But not everyone likes surprises—not Lima’s mayor, informed only days before its June 2011 unveiling, and not locals frustrated that construction was outsourced to Brazil.
 
 García’s surprise statue certainly isn’t the first to spark controversy. Some of the world’s most impressive monuments have backstories of bickering, which, in addition to good gossip, give travelers insights into local culture, history, and priorities. Even when a monument’s construction is well publicized, a positive reception isn’t guaranteed, whether because of differing aesthetic tastes, costliness, or partisanship.
 
 Outside Madrid, unhappy locals have railed against a certain site for so many years that the government has formed a commission to recommend modifications. Read on for the inside story on that and more monumental controversies.

Valley of the Fallen, Spain
 
 Dictator Francisco Franco ordered the construction of this monument outside Madrid to honor those who died for his cause during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. And he enlisted political prisoners to carve the massive basilica into a mountainside—infuriating many Spaniards. After years of demonstrations and debate, in May 2011, the government assembled a commission to evaluate its future. Its initial recommendation calls for Franco’s body to be removed from the site.

African Renaissance Monument, Senegal
 
 President Abdoulaye Wade didn’t win any popularity votes when he funneled millions into the construction of a monument to the African Renaissance. A waste of money wasn’t the only reaction to this 160-foot bronze colossus unveiled in April 2010. It depicts a stylized muscular man with a baby in his arms, emerging from a volcano and pulling along a half-naked woman—and has been criticized for both skimpy clothing and sexism.

Brown Dog Statue, London
 
 A small dog statue in London’s Battersea Park looks harmless, but it’s a 1985 replacement of a statue with a fraught backstory. The original terrier was *****ed in 1906 by a group opposed to the use of animals in medical experiments. It displayed a plaque condemning pro-vivisection students at the University College. Outraged and embarrassed, those students destroyed it. The new statue is plainer, sans fountain or plaque, but it is still a terrier, modeled after the pet of sculptor Nicola Hicks.

Beatles Monument, Mongolia
 
 
 
 The statues of Buddha and Genghis Khan that loom over Mongolia have some unexpected company: a brick guitar-shaped memorial to the Beatles in downtown Ulaanbaatar. In 2008, Mongolian sculptor Den Barsboldt molded this tribute to the Fab Four, who won fans in some circles for their music—and for representing Western democratic freedoms. Mongolia had a peaceful, democratic revolution, but the older generation still doesn’t want to give this monument a chance.