Shrine Of Remembrance & Public Art
2 - 42 Domain Road,, MELBOURNE VIC 3004 - Property No B4848
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Statement of Significance
Building Statement of Significance: World War 1 had an immense impact on Australian life and sense of nationhood. The building of the Shrine of Remembrance was a fervent commemoration of appalling sacrifice of life and an assertion of the nobility of the cause for which so many died. Its huge scale reflects the anguish of a generation.
The site chosen for this great monument, a low hill on the axis of Swanston Street and embraced by a bend of St. Kilda Road, gives prominence and visibility from all directions and is crowned by the memorial building.
The design of the Shrine of Remembrance arose from an architectural competition won, in 1923, by two Melbourne architects, Mr. P. B. Hudson and Mr. J. H. Wardrop. The foundation stone was laid by His Excellency, the Governor of Victoria, Lord Somers, on the 11th November 1927 and work was commenced in 1928 by the contractor, Vaughan & Lodge. The dedication was carried out by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, on the 11th November 1934.
The building consists of a truncated stepped pyramid set on a square podium with upper and lower terraces. The two north and south facing porticos each incorporate eight Greek Doric columns supporting a pediment with allegorical sculpture in the tympana.
The external walls and steps are a light grey granite from Tynong, the internal walls a light beige sandstone from Redesdale and the sixteen black marble monolithic columns of the Ionic order in the sanctuary were quarried at Buchan.
English sculptor, Paul Raphael Montford, designed the four external corner buttress-groups of statuary and the two external tympana; the twelve frieze panels in the sanctuary are the work of Australian sculptor Lyndon Dadswell. They were assisted by three carvers, J. Hamilton, W. Hutchings and W. Wager. A bronze father and son sculpture designed and executed by R. Ewers was placed in the crypt in 1968.
High up inside the sanctuary is a small opening contrived so that at the 11th day of the 11th month of each year, a ray of sunlight, strikes through to the Stone of Remembrance set into the floor at the centre of the sanctuary.
The design, although said to be based on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, reflects the contemporary revival architecture of the late 1920s in Melbourne as seen in such major buildings as the Port Authority Building (1929) in Market Street, and the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy(1928) in Russell Street, which are strongly Neo-Grec in style. However, the Shrine, being closer in function to the ancient prototypes, expresses this style more fully, both in its external monumental form and in the superb detail of its bronze metal-work.
The Classified area includes the main building, the lighting towers and the granite steps and walls, but not the later copper roofing or the concrete paved forecourt with the cenotaph and perpetual flame.
Classified: 21/05/1981
2007 National Trust Victorian Heritage Icon Award
`Simpson and His Donkey - Wallace Anderson Statement of Significance:
This small sculpture is of State Significance, and is a major public icon associated with Australia's involvement in the First World War. Wallace Anderson himself served in the war, and the work therefore displays a sensitivity and sensibility that is rare in Australian sculpture of the time. The work is low key in handling of the central theme of heroism. The scale is not overblown rhetoric - something that is unusual in much of the sculpture associated with Australian military involvement. As such it is a jewel that is not fully appreciated by the authorities. It has since become the source for Peter Corlett's much larger sculpture on the same topic for Canberra.
Classified: 05/04/1991
File note: Buttress groups (Paul Montford), Friezes (Lyndon Dadswell) & WW2 forecourt memorial (George Allen) have seperate classifications.
File note: Widow and son sculpture by Louis Lamen.
File Note: The Jagger statues, "Wypers" and "The Driver", (B0427) were relocated here from the State Library forecourt in 1997.
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SHRINE OF REMEMBRANCEVictorian Heritage Register H0848
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FORMER KELLOW FALKINER SHOWROOMSVictorian Heritage Register H0668
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MAJELLAVictorian Heritage Register H0783
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