 The architects were responsible for the construction phase of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial beginning in 1939, two years after the death of its original architect, John Russell Pope, despite protests that their appointment had been undemocratic and therefore "un-Jeffersonian".Critics argued a competition should have been held to choose Pope's successor.In 1941, they also completed construction of Pope's other famous design, the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, also in Washington D.C..