ANZAC War Memorial
Encyclopedia
The ANZAC War Memorial, completed in 1934, is the main commemorative military monument of Sydney
, Australia
. It was designed by C. Bruce Dellit
, with the exterior adorned with monumental figural reliefs and sculptures by Rayner Hoff
.
The memorial is located at the southern extremity of Hyde Park
on the eastern edge of Sydney's central business district
, and it is the focus of commemoration ceremonies on Anzac Day
, Armistice Day
and other important occasions.
It was built as a memorial to the Australian Imperial Force
of World War I
. Fund raising for a memorial began on 25 April 1916, the first anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing at Anzac Cove
for the Battle of Gallipoli
. It was opened on 24 November 1934 by His Royal Highness Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
.
for the design of the memorial was commissioned in July 1929 and a month later the prize-winning entries were announced by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game
. Third prize was awarded to Peter Kaad, second prize to John D. Moore and the winner was Bruce Dellit.
The building is constructed of concrete, with an exterior cladding of pink granite
, and consists of a massed square superstructure
with typically Art Deco setbacks and buttresses, punctuated on each side by a large arched window of yellow stained glass, and crowned with a ziggurat
-inspired stepped roof. It is positioned atop a cruciform
pedestal within which are located administrative offices and a small museum.
The interior is largely faced in white marble, and features a domed ceiling adorned with 120,000 gold stars - one for each of New South Wales
' military volunteers during World War I
. Access to the main hall is provided via broad stairways on each side of the building's north-south axis, while ground-level doorways on the east and west sides offer entry to the lower section.
The main focus of the interior is Rayner Hoff's monumental bronze
sculpture of a deceased youth, representing a soldier, held aloft on his shield by a caryatid
- three female figures, representing his mother, sister and wife. The male figure's nudity was considered shocking at the time of the monument's opening, and it is said to be the only such representation of a naked male form within any war memorial. Two other even more controversial figural sculptures designed by Hoff—one featuring a naked female figure—were never installed on the eastern and western faces of the structure as intended, partly as a result of opposition from high ranking, reactionary local Catholic Church representatives.
The building's exterior is adorned with several bronze friezes, carved granite relief panels and twenty monumental stone figural sculptures symbolising military personnel, also by Hoff.
Immediately to the north of the ANZAC Memorial is a large rectangular "Lake of Reflections" flanked by rows of poplar
s. The poplars, not native to Australia, symbolise the areas of France in which Australian troops fought. Original plans called for the construction of similar pools on each of the other sides of the building, but these were never built.
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It was designed by C. Bruce Dellit
Charles Bruce Dellit
Charles Bruce Dellit was a prominent Australian architect in the Art Deco style. He was generally known as Bruce Dellit.-Family History:...
, with the exterior adorned with monumental figural reliefs and sculptures by Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff was a sculptor who worked in Australia.Born on the Isle of Man, Hoff was the son of a stone and wood carver of Dutch descent. He began helping his father on architectural commissions at a very young age and briefly attended the Nottingham School of Art where he studied drawing, design,...
.
The memorial is located at the southern extremity of Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Sydney
Hyde Park is a large park in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Hyde Park is on the eastern side of the Sydney central business district. It is the southernmost of a chain of parkland that extends north to the shore of Port Jackson . It is approximately rectangular in shape, being squared at the...
on the eastern edge of Sydney's central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
, and it is the focus of commemoration ceremonies on Anzac Day
ANZAC Day
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all...
, Armistice Day
Armistice Day
Armistice Day is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day...
and other important occasions.
It was built as a memorial to the Australian Imperial Force
First Australian Imperial Force
The First Australian Imperial Force was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I. It was formed from 15 August 1914, following Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Generally known at the time as the AIF, it is today referred to as the 1st AIF to distinguish from...
of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Fund raising for a memorial began on 25 April 1916, the first anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing at Anzac Cove
Landing at Anzac Cove
The landing at Anzac Cove was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian and New Zealand forces on 25 April 1915. The landing, north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast of the Peninsula, was made by soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and was the first...
for the Battle of Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
. It was opened on 24 November 1934 by His Royal Highness Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
The Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester was a soldier and member of the British Royal Family, the third son of George V of the United Kingdom and Queen Mary....
.
Design
A competitionArchitectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
for the design of the memorial was commissioned in July 1929 and a month later the prize-winning entries were announced by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game
Philip Game
Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott Game GCB, GCVO, GBE, KCMG, DSO was a British Royal Air Force commander, who later served as Governor of New South Wales and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis...
. Third prize was awarded to Peter Kaad, second prize to John D. Moore and the winner was Bruce Dellit.
The building is constructed of concrete, with an exterior cladding of pink granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, and consists of a massed square superstructure
Superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships...
with typically Art Deco setbacks and buttresses, punctuated on each side by a large arched window of yellow stained glass, and crowned with a ziggurat
Ziggurat
Ziggurats were massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq; the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near...
-inspired stepped roof. It is positioned atop a cruciform
Cruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
pedestal within which are located administrative offices and a small museum.
The interior is largely faced in white marble, and features a domed ceiling adorned with 120,000 gold stars - one for each of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
' military volunteers during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Access to the main hall is provided via broad stairways on each side of the building's north-south axis, while ground-level doorways on the east and west sides offer entry to the lower section.
The main focus of the interior is Rayner Hoff's monumental bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
sculpture of a deceased youth, representing a soldier, held aloft on his shield by a caryatid
Caryatid
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese...
- three female figures, representing his mother, sister and wife. The male figure's nudity was considered shocking at the time of the monument's opening, and it is said to be the only such representation of a naked male form within any war memorial. Two other even more controversial figural sculptures designed by Hoff—one featuring a naked female figure—were never installed on the eastern and western faces of the structure as intended, partly as a result of opposition from high ranking, reactionary local Catholic Church representatives.
The building's exterior is adorned with several bronze friezes, carved granite relief panels and twenty monumental stone figural sculptures symbolising military personnel, also by Hoff.
Immediately to the north of the ANZAC Memorial is a large rectangular "Lake of Reflections" flanked by rows of poplar
Poplar
Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar , aspen, and cottonwood....
s. The poplars, not native to Australia, symbolise the areas of France in which Australian troops fought. Original plans called for the construction of similar pools on each of the other sides of the building, but these were never built.
See also
- Australian War MemorialAustralian War MemorialThe Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
- Australia's national war memorial and museum in Canberra - Shrine of RemembranceShrine of RemembranceThe Shrine of Remembrance, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war...
- Melbourne's main war memorial - Shrine of Remembrance, BrisbaneShrine of Remembrance, BrisbaneThe Shrine of Remembrance is located in ANZAC Square, between Ann Street and Adelaide Street, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. With its 'Eternal Flame', the Shrine is a war memorial dedicated to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ....
- Brisbane's main war memorial - Hobart CenotaphHobart CenotaphHobart Cenotaph, , is the main commemorative military monument for the Australian state of Tasmania. It is located in the capital Hobart in a prominent position on the Queens Domain, on a small rise overlooking the city and River Derwent...
- Hobart's main war memorial
Sources
- Bayer, Patricia, Art Deco Architecture: Design, Decoration and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties, Thames & Hudson, London, 1992
- Edwards, Deborah, This Vital Flesh: The Sculpture of Rayner Hoff and His School, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1999
- Hedger, Michael, Public Sculpture in Australia, Craftsman House, Sydney, NSW, 1995
- Inglis, K.S., Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1998
- Sturgeon, Graeme, The Development of Australian Sculpture: 1788 - 1975, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978
- Van Daele, Patrick and Roy Lumly, A Spirit of Progress: Art Deco Architecture in Australia, Craftsman House, Sydney, NSW, 1997
External links
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6TxhGC7oc - ANZAC War Memorial 3D Animation
- ANZAC War Memorial - Description of the memorial from the City of SydneyCity of SydneyThe City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
website. (Last accessed Dec 31, 2009) - ANZAC Memorial - A site that features a good aerial photograph of the memorial and its immediate surrounds.
- Peace Offering that Shocked the Church - A newspaper article that discusses the controversy surrounding the never-installed sculptures Rayner Hoff designed for the ANZAC Memorial.
- http://www.sydneymedia.com.au/html/3327-national-salute-needed-for-aussie-diggers.asp Information on a proposal by the City of Sydney to install the second pond of reflection on the southern side of the memorial as originally intended.
- http://www.artdecosydney.com/Warmemorial.html - 45 related to the Art Deco design of the memorial.