The following formal submission have been made public
Submitter: james rossNew Southern Entrance
see below
Bean Building Extension and Central Energy Plant
see below
Anzac Hall and Glazed Link
To the National Capital Authority Works Approval team.
I make a representation to oppose, with all my heart, the Australian War Memorial Mian Works proposal.
I write as a private citizen, but I note that am a member of the Royal Australian Air Force, with over 41 years’ service. I have deployed to East Timor, UAE, Iraq and Afghanistan. I continue to serve with pride but also with a disgust in any celebration and romanticisation of war. The AWM was designed and has operated as a memorial to sacrifice, and as a place of reflection on the heavy costs of conflict and aggression. I am dismayed that the expansion of the AWM as is intended will see it move far from this aim, to instead become a museum, which will inevitably glorify and mythologise war.
The plan for the AWM is in conflict with Canberra’s role ‘as the symbol of Australian national life and values’. As such I implore you to halt this development to avoid grave damage to Canberra’s grand civil task.
I do not offer a critique of the architectural merit of the proposal, but rather of the use to which the new ‘improved’ AWM will be put.
The Australian War Memorial was established, according to its own publications as "not a general museum portraying war, much less one glorifying it, but a memorial". The new works are at odds with this, with vastly increased display areas, designed to show weaponry. Such a fundamental change must be resisted and not permitted to proceed.
The Hall of Memory, Pool of Reflection, and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the current Australian War Memorial provide locations for contemplation and understanding and are of a human size and scale. They are places of reverence and honour and are greatly respected by the Australian community.
It appears that the existing flow along the axis between Mt Ainslie and Parliament House must be interrupted by the design, whatever the aesthetic merits of the design.
I do note as well that the Griffins were profoundly passivist in philosophy. The NCA must be guardians of their plan for Canberra, and that plan cannot contemplate a war museum. The Griffins had planned the site at the base of Mt Ainslie as a "Place of the people". A War Memorial is not what the Griffins envisioned, but it has served their purpose. The new works emphatically will not be such a place.
The New Anzac Hall can only have a use for display of military hardware, not in keeping with a memorial.
The question for the NCA is whether it is appropriate under the National Capital Plan, and consistent with the Griffin Plan, for the Australian War Memorial to be transformed in this way.
I urge you to decide that it is not.
I make a representation to oppose, with all my heart, the Australian War Memorial Mian Works proposal.
I write as a private citizen, but I note that am a member of the Royal Australian Air Force, with over 41 years’ service. I have deployed to East Timor, UAE, Iraq and Afghanistan. I continue to serve with pride but also with a disgust in any celebration and romanticisation of war. The AWM was designed and has operated as a memorial to sacrifice, and as a place of reflection on the heavy costs of conflict and aggression. I am dismayed that the expansion of the AWM as is intended will see it move far from this aim, to instead become a museum, which will inevitably glorify and mythologise war.
The plan for the AWM is in conflict with Canberra’s role ‘as the symbol of Australian national life and values’. As such I implore you to halt this development to avoid grave damage to Canberra’s grand civil task.
I do not offer a critique of the architectural merit of the proposal, but rather of the use to which the new ‘improved’ AWM will be put.
The Australian War Memorial was established, according to its own publications as "not a general museum portraying war, much less one glorifying it, but a memorial". The new works are at odds with this, with vastly increased display areas, designed to show weaponry. Such a fundamental change must be resisted and not permitted to proceed.
The Hall of Memory, Pool of Reflection, and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the current Australian War Memorial provide locations for contemplation and understanding and are of a human size and scale. They are places of reverence and honour and are greatly respected by the Australian community.
It appears that the existing flow along the axis between Mt Ainslie and Parliament House must be interrupted by the design, whatever the aesthetic merits of the design.
I do note as well that the Griffins were profoundly passivist in philosophy. The NCA must be guardians of their plan for Canberra, and that plan cannot contemplate a war museum. The Griffins had planned the site at the base of Mt Ainslie as a "Place of the people". A War Memorial is not what the Griffins envisioned, but it has served their purpose. The new works emphatically will not be such a place.
The New Anzac Hall can only have a use for display of military hardware, not in keeping with a memorial.
The question for the NCA is whether it is appropriate under the National Capital Plan, and consistent with the Griffin Plan, for the Australian War Memorial to be transformed in this way.
I urge you to decide that it is not.