President Abraham Lincoln was definitely a memorable figure in his lifetime and, arguably, even more after his death. In 1868, 3 years after Lincoln's assassination, Lot Flannery erected a statue in front of the District of Columbia City Hall as a public memorial for the former president, which sparked public interest in a national memorial. Though despite passing (and rejecting) a great number of bills, the Lincoln Memorial that we know today only started to take its roots on February 12, 1914, when the actual construction began. With $300,000 of funds, the memorial was finished in 1922 with Henry Bacon as the architect and Daniel Chester French as the sculptor for the project. The entire memorial takes 27,336 square feet (2,539.6 m2) of space, while the exterior 'temple' measures 189.7 by 118.5 feet (57.8 by 36.1 m) and is 99 feet (30 m) tall. It was built in the classic Greek fashion with signature columns and friezes. Lincoln statue is 19 feet (5.8 m) and is made of Georgia white marble weighing 175 short tons (159 t) and it had to be shipped in twenty-eight pieces.