The following formal submission have been made public
Submitter: Jennifer MitchellNew Southern Entrance
To the National Capital Authority Works Approval team.
I write in regards to the NCA's current consultation on the Australian War Memorial Main Works, most specifically the New Southern Entrance and the New Anzac Hall and Glazed Link, but also the works as a full package.
I grew up in Canberra in the 1970s and 1980s, and made many visits to the War Memorial as a young person, and I also made the architecture and displays, the entire setting of the museum a focus of projects on art, on human experience, on the futility and cost of war. Consequently the Memorial has a significant place in my memories of Canberra, and in my development as an Australian. The whole site as it is now has a powerful, and astonishingly restrained presence, It’s amazing aesthetics supports and invites cool reflection, brings the visitor into the stillness which enables feeling, and a silence in which to honour loss. These are what makes the site one which carries meaning. Don’t lose, it, don’t destroy it.
Perusing the materials on the different developments planned fills me with sadness, as it appears the focus of the memorial as a place that documents and holds within a sacred space the sacrifice and pain experienced by Australia’s Armed forces is going to be lost, in order to build a much louder, overwhelming monument to campaigns, technology, machinery and noise. In short, it’s to become a monument to conflict, a celebration of destructive power, instead of what the memorial was designed to be, a place to honour sacrifice, and reflect on the horrific cost of war.
Losing any aspect of the current design will transform the site, sacrificing the substantial character which suffuses the art, the mosaics, in short the power which makes it so vital as a Canberra location for honouring the fallen. Losing the trees on the site is an unbearable travesty, and will further corrupt the spiritual resonance of memorial.
I call on you to make use of your particular remit among the institutions of our capital city to halt this development before more damage is done to the heritage, culture and symbolic role of the city.
The NCA's crucial role is to ensure that all development within significant areas of the national capital is consistent with the National Capital Plan. This includes, among other points, ensuring that such development:
is consistent with Canberra's role "as the symbol of Australian national life and values";
conserves and enhances "the landscape features which give the National Capital its character and setting, and which contribute to the integration of natural and urban environments"; and
creates, conserves and enhances "fitting sites, approaches and backdrops for national institutions and ceremonies".
I write in regards to the NCA's current consultation on the Australian War Memorial Main Works, most specifically the New Southern Entrance and the New Anzac Hall and Glazed Link, but also the works as a full package.
I grew up in Canberra in the 1970s and 1980s, and made many visits to the War Memorial as a young person, and I also made the architecture and displays, the entire setting of the museum a focus of projects on art, on human experience, on the futility and cost of war. Consequently the Memorial has a significant place in my memories of Canberra, and in my development as an Australian. The whole site as it is now has a powerful, and astonishingly restrained presence, It’s amazing aesthetics supports and invites cool reflection, brings the visitor into the stillness which enables feeling, and a silence in which to honour loss. These are what makes the site one which carries meaning. Don’t lose, it, don’t destroy it.
Perusing the materials on the different developments planned fills me with sadness, as it appears the focus of the memorial as a place that documents and holds within a sacred space the sacrifice and pain experienced by Australia’s Armed forces is going to be lost, in order to build a much louder, overwhelming monument to campaigns, technology, machinery and noise. In short, it’s to become a monument to conflict, a celebration of destructive power, instead of what the memorial was designed to be, a place to honour sacrifice, and reflect on the horrific cost of war.
Losing any aspect of the current design will transform the site, sacrificing the substantial character which suffuses the art, the mosaics, in short the power which makes it so vital as a Canberra location for honouring the fallen. Losing the trees on the site is an unbearable travesty, and will further corrupt the spiritual resonance of memorial.
I call on you to make use of your particular remit among the institutions of our capital city to halt this development before more damage is done to the heritage, culture and symbolic role of the city.
The NCA's crucial role is to ensure that all development within significant areas of the national capital is consistent with the National Capital Plan. This includes, among other points, ensuring that such development:
is consistent with Canberra's role "as the symbol of Australian national life and values";
conserves and enhances "the landscape features which give the National Capital its character and setting, and which contribute to the integration of natural and urban environments"; and
creates, conserves and enhances "fitting sites, approaches and backdrops for national institutions and ceremonies".