The Sir John Monash Centre | Villers-Bretonneux, France | 2018

Architects: COX Architecture with Williams, Abrahams and Lampros
Client: Global Project Solutions Pty Ltd. on behalf of Department of Veteran's Affairs
Contractor: Bouygues Construction
Photographers: John Gollings

To the east of the 1938 Edwin Lutyens-designed memorial to the Australians who fell in the nearby fields during World War I, a new feature has been added.

The Sir John Monash Centre is sensitively arranged and complements, in terms of both its form and function, the existing Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France.

A primary objective for the design is the way in which it complements Lutyens’ unifying geometry.

The design of the centre is carefully placed “within” the overarching site geometry as set out by Edwin Lutyens in the original memorial design, this geometry dictates the placement of the building and its proportioning.

The intervention in and around the site respects and enhances the landscape values of the site, by remaining below the height of the Wall of the Memorial and below the natural ground level for the ancillary buildings on the site.

The centre can be described as a “landscape solution,” with the building hidden from view underneath the elevated French meadow – a meadow which now becomes the roof of the building.

It is intended to be very much secondary, ancillary and subservient to the monument,

It’s almost an anti-building, connected to the monument from an abstract and geometric point of view.

The building is physically connected to the original monument via twin ramps attached to the existing pavilions that flank the tower, completing Lutyens terrace paths as originally intended.

The ramps follow the route of the existing walls that bear the names of almost 11,000 lost soldiers whose graves remain unknown.

The ramps then sharply turn 90 degrees, providing visitors with a view of the tower, before completing an ‘about turn’ and into the underground interpretive centre.

These sharp turns allude to the trenches of the Western Front, which were not simple straight lines and were designed to limit the impact of incoming artillery.

The trench-like experience continues as the ramps lead visitors into a dim and sombre foyer entry.

The descent into darkness is a critical part of the experience.

By contrast visitors will exit the building via a sunken courtyard, then ascending onto a landing threshold with a view of a landscape that was once the field of battle and where the Australian general Sir John Monash famously won victory.

A key feature of the design is the triangular opening or “oculus,” which penetrates the meadow-roof of the building, which can be seen from the top of the tower

From inside the new centre, the shape of the oculus is a function of the triangulated, coffered concrete ceiling but also, it opens up in the direction of the tower and allows the best view of it.

This is not a traditional museum but an immersive experience, using cutting edge interpretive technology to transport visitors into a situation beyond comprehension and now beyond living memory, but central to many Australian’s understanding of their country and collective psyche and identity.