As long ago as the mid 1990s a number of Australian Korean War veterans had begun the processes of publicly commemorating the Australian participation in the Korean War. As other contingents of serving personnel had before them, they were determined to have a memorial set in place on Anzac Parade, Canberra, the avenue which ties the Australian Parliamentary Triangle (and specifically both Parliament Houses) to the Australian War Memorial, a physical metaphor for one aspect of the foundation of the Australian nation—its military history. Those original moves in the mid 1990s came to fruition on 18 April 2000 when The Australian National Korean War Memorial was dedicated. This essay provides a brief history and analysis of the processes of design, evaluation and building of this newest memorial.

Another Forgotten War?

Titling this essay 'Another Forgotten War Remembered', may appear to be an appeal to the slightly controversial or disrespectful—but that tone should not be read as humorously ironic. If ironic at all it should have an edge of lament or melancholy, for indeed it is the case that for most Australians and large numbers of the other participants (chiefly the USA) the Korean War is the most substantial of those many wars, conflicts units and individuals who have for whatever reason cast themselves or been cast as forgotten.1 More forgotten even than the Vietnam 'generation'. Indeed recently in Australia, as part of the publicity campaign surrounding the National Memorial, the Korean veterans themselves discussed the issue of whether or not they wanted to maintain this forgotten 'image'. They decided to keep it, despite the advice and attempts of some senior members of their various organizations and committees to put, as it were, a more positive account of the Korean War into this 'new' public domain, in association with this, their new memorial.2

Forgotten-ness of such major events as large wars seems to have become a kind of virus within the post-Vietnam period. It is as if the public memory lapse about Vietnam which seems to have followed the fall of Saigon in 1975 became an epidemic which virtually erased all other memories of wars which preceded Vietnam.3 When the memory dam of Vietnam broke, equally it valorised all other recollections, memories, and a huge nostalgia. But instead of seeing these phenomena as perhaps parts of those natural cycles of public forgetting, remembering and rehabilitating which follow huge historical movements, forgetting and memory lapse became something more in need of and abetting the processes of validation. Once forgotten, the more emotionally powerful and validly remembered, it seems. It might be argued that the cycle adumbrated here, beginning with forgetting, is contentious. Instead of forgetting it might be more reasonable to see the public tendency of forgetting the immediate memories of a war (won or lost for that matter) as merely a kind of social rationality—the need to get on with the after-war life (politics, economics and so forth)—and not to continue to live the intra-war life. That is, it is not so much forgetting as putting aside or a turning away from. Being forgotten is by comparison much more emotionally powerful than a turning back. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it should be contagious. But it follows then that not all cases may be so clearly part of the memory loss as claimed.

'A poor sort of memory that works only backwards'

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen opens Alice's mind to the possibility that memory need not work only retrospectively. While Carroll, Oxford logician, was playing with the philosophical questions of memory, the late twentieth century has realised the possibility of remembering forwards. Certainly memory is often evoked in circumstances of constructing events for a future audience.

In filmmaker Spielberg's recent Saving Private Ryan there is evidence of a kind of extraordinary appropriation of the loss of military historical memory to the Second World War. Behind the obvious and literalised memory of saving Private Ryan is a less obvious and more dubious metaphoric meaning in the film's saving of that particular theatre—D-Day at Omaha Beach. It might be observed that Spielberg revivified and indeed 'realised' into popular memory Omaha as the event of the Second World War—as the moment when the USA saved western values, indeed western civilization as 'we' know it. For many outside the USA such a claim is not merely rehabilitating local and national memory. It is claiming all of it—a globalizing sweep. Not so much the request 'you must remember'—which would allow the local, the national, the other ethnicity—Spielberg's view (and his is reflective of other issues of memory in the globalized postmodern world) demands more: 'You must remember this' and this only. US history is the history. Forgetting leads to a collective though specific re-membering.4

By contrast, and perhaps quite rightly, the broader demographic of Australian Korean veterans (and the use of the word 'veterans' is itself a loaded term indicative of a post- Vietnam ecology) wanted to keep their 'forgotten-ness' at the forefront of the memorialising process. Being forgotten has, I would argue, become a badge of some distinction within some populations of serving personnel. What effect that badging has within the process of the choice of the memorial design, its building and status within the community, will be at least one point of discussion the memorial may encourage in the future.

What kind of memory then has to rise literally as concrete and steel from the past, and whose past? By definition many now just in primary school and younger do not and are unlikely to share the pasts of their grandparents or beyond. Such is the rapidity of cultural change that the connectedness of and between generations up to and including the Vietnam generation seems threatened if it is not already disconnected. True, every generation has made the same Socratic lament about the education (or rather its lack) of the youth that follows. The late twentieth century enfolds that general lament within the perception that the newer media of hypertext, Web and Net seem destined to fundamentally alter cognitive life. Where once upon a distant medieval time the impact of the new technology—the book—was loudly touted as a threat to the mnemonic habits and skills of the old world, the Net threatens it seems far more.5 Perhaps. It remains to be seen. Yet, conjectures of some kinds can be made about the effects of such things on, of all things, memorials. What kinds of memory? It seems that considerations of the kind of gaps between the serving personnel and those who have forgotten them necessitate, or at least guide, the criteria of how to set up and design memorials in the late twentieth century. At the least one can observe such criteria in the last three if not more memorials along Anzac Parade: namely the Vietnam, Service Nurses' and the Korean memorials. Each in their own way opts for the memorial as installation—as a miniature museum—at once more than monumental and commemorative, more than celebratory, more than educative—yet these memorials combine all of these elements, and then some, to create 'environments'.

The 'complete' visitor to such memorials cannot just contemplate and remember the events, the dates, the people, they are invited to have a kind of experience—to participate in and, momentarily at least, to understand what the events were like. Such memorials in some ways do not encourage the practice of remembering simply; for most of their visitors now and in future the memory will have to work forwards to construct memory, not re-construct it. Such memorials are in some ways simulations. This view is arguable and of course not of necessity a negative comment about the role and status of these memorials. It is a view of them supported by the way the memorial competitions and designs are designed, decided and executed.

A National Competition

On 18 April 2000 The Australian Korean National Memorial was dedicated, the culmination of just on four years of committees, design competition and judging and then just under a year of construction, all at a cost of about $1.5 million. The complex design is another magnificent contribution to that curiously Australian sweep of monuments, statues, memorials and celebrations of the Australian history of military duty, both in war and peace, which appears along Anzac Parade. In the light of Canberra's designers, Anzac Parade can be read as a summary of Australia's military involvements—a 'paragraph' as it were, syntactically connecting the Australian War Memorial to the Parliamentary Buildings of the triangle across the lake. A 'summary paragraph' to be sure, and 'curious' because it consists of a series of discrete monuments nestled within their own niches along the two sides of the Parade. But also Australian in the quiet reticence of their nestling—there is no strident militarism here. The better then, that at last (and timely enough) Korea joins the memories along this avenue; that the paragraph is the more complete by their addition.

The Australian National Korean War Memorial Project

The Australian National Korean War Memorial (ANKWM) Project formally began before 1996 with lobbying for a suitable site along the acknowledged axis of the nation's service history—Anzac Parade, Canberra, and with site dedication in April 1996. As always the National Capital Authority (NCA) acted in an administrative and supervisory role, ensuring that the memorial fit within the overall plan not only of Anzac Parade but more widely within the Canberra devised by the Burley Griffins.

The location chosen for the memorial was on the western side of Anzac Parade, opposite the Service Nurses' Memorial. A judging panel was established and drew up a set of criteria for the type of memorial desired. The national competition was announced in April 1997. As is usual for these competitions overseen by the NCA the competition was constructed as a limited two-stage structure; submissions would be judged by a 'panel of assessors' set up by the larger committee. Stage One was set in train in April with interested parties being given not only a substantial booklet (some fifty-one pages) of guidelines but also other matters which included an Information Folder describing the Korean War; the Australian involvement; the purposes and philosophy of the project; where the site was; and the complete set of rules.

From that initial interest the panel selected no more than twelve who were then asked to continue in the two-stage competition. That twelve would then be culled and as many as five chosen to submit to the second stage. The timetable was, to put it mildly, tight. The opening phase began on 23 June. That was the date competition entry closed and Stage One began. The committee chose its first twelve. Not quite five weeks later on 24 July the Stage One winners had to resubmit their more substantial briefs in which they could modify and enhance their designs on the basis of further information. On 24 July Stage One judging began and three weeks later on 14 August the twelve were culled to a smaller number—no more than five—and these five had a chance to resubmit even more material as Stage Two opened. They had another five weeks to tailor their new versions with a deadline of 18 September. Then followed another three weeks for assessment. Rather than announcing the winner at the end of this process, the designated 'winning' entry had to meet the approval of other committees—that is, the choice of the assessment panel had to be ratified so to speak by the full committee and the project assessed for its fitness for the nation's capital, by other government bodies. None of this a mere formality; the timeframe allowed eight weeks, with a public announcement expected on 4 December 1997. From then it was up to the committee to organize funding and then the building. That took much longer.

At first as usual the site was marked and a sign announcing the winning design, builders, auditors and management was put in place. Soon too, the site was dedicated. At this occasion a number of large boulders given by the Korean Government were placed as an interim monument, in 1998. At that time it seemed very likely that any winning design would include these in its 'new' plans. Building began in mid-1999 and progressed rapidly to the memorial dedication on 18 April 2000.

That in summary was the timeframe. It was tight, even more so when the requirements of the entrants set out in the booklet are looked at. Stage One entrance was relatively simple: only a small amount of documentation from prospective entrants was required.6 This included:

All of this was limited to no more than two A1 sheets using one side only, a formidable task in its way, one might observe. But more was required. As well as the drawings the entrants needed to submit a 'Descriptive Statement', which at least had to address the design criteria, describe the materials and method of construction, and give an 'opinion' of the budget, especially as to whether it could be built within the limit of $1.5 million, and last, an A3 sized reductions of the A1 drawings. All of this to be on no more than ten A4 typed sheets, plus the A3 additions. (p 9)

Those designs judged suitable for more consideration were then asked to provide considerably more detail. Stage Two submissions were required to submit drawings—at least but not restricted to:

All of this on no more than two A1 sheets. But by this stage the needs were even more complex. The NCA and the committee had made 'a realistically coloured, three-dimensional, 1:50 scale [base] model' of the Anzac Parade site and required that entrants build a model of their submissions which could be inserted into the 'base model' template. A separate set of instructions was provided to Stage Two entrants to help with the insertion of the model. So the NCA and the committee required drawings, a model and more: a 'Design Report' which had to expand and elaborate on the Stage One material where necessary; provide much more detailed cost estimates including all fees; a tighter idea as to the chronology of the building process; indications of post-building maintenance and management; and a set of reduced A3 copies of the Stage Two drawings. The descriptive material was again to be typewritten on A4 sheets, but there was now no stated limit to the word length of the submission.

What is listed above is just the amount of data to be taken in as to how to present the submission. These are just the formal requirements. The 'content'—the actual individualized design elements—were also constrained or rather guided by a set of design criteria set in place by the NCA and other government regulations, building constraints and so forth, and by the guiding principles which the larger committee wanted to see as fulfilling the needs of the Korean veteran community. Previous criteria set out in the booklets detailing the Vietnam and Service Nurses' memorials demonstrate that there is a 'vocabulary' (and possibly even a syntax) of such memorials, at least in Canberra, while at the same time the competitors are allowed extreme latitude: the design might include this or it might include that, but it need not follow all criteria.7 However to some eyes the criteria might well read as a check list to which many entrants usually comply by explaining how their design meets the criteria or, and rather more edgily, how their design does not need to meet the criteria because it has done something better. In fact the winning design team in the Korean case did actually address each criteria point by point even when redirecting some of the criteria's emphases.

The Design Criteria

The booklet begins with the 'Commemorative Purpose of the Memorial':

Rather than prescribe the form of the memorial the booklet urges 'competitors' to 'interpret and develop' their own wide ranging approach to meeting the design criteria. Yet the committee invited combinations of architectural, sculptural, artistic and/or landscape elements, and specifically mentioned lighting, stairs, raised areas, carved inscriptions, appropriate commemorative plaques, relief or three-dimensional sculpture, and flagpoles (p 11). The winning design has all of these and more.

However these points are not all that are listed in the guidelines. Under the heading 'Design Objectives and Limitations' the committee listed several more points; seven under the subheading 'Intent':

There was still more information—another seven points under 'Form and Disposition' and another eleven under 'Siting and Landscape', and even more points allocated to materials. These spelled out quite rigid details, sometimes about specific choices, sometimes about other matters. Here are a few:

The winning representational figures are about 1.3 metres tall.

The boulders are mentioned: 'Some or all may be included but they need not be used'. They were used of course.

And last among a few other points to do with access there is almost a last comment:

Despite its slight hint of subversive usage, the design point refers of course to consideration of how to avoid and repair damage and to overall conservation, that is to the materials used. A seemingly slight point, in the long run for such memorials this is an issue that weighs heavily on the way the designs are executed and often costed. In many cases such as the Vietnam Memorial this point may impact on the way various elements are made and indeed whether or not various elements could be incorporated at all.10

Added to the quite detailed (even long) descriptions of essential elements, the booklet contained a substantial 'essay' of historical material which was amply illustrated throughout with maps and historical and contemporary photographs of the Services, all of which were to assist in putting a fuller understanding of the purpose, significance and location of the memorial before prospective competitors. Not least in light of the 'forgotten' nature of the war, the booklet attempted to provide a summary but considerable history for prospective entrants.

The Chosen Design

The winning design was created by a Melbourne team of artist Les Kossatz, sculptor Augustine Dall'ava, architect Sand Helsel, and draughtsman David Bullpit. Their design is quite complex, incorporating landscaped areas, architectural features, figures and abstract designs. It in fact makes an environment into and around which the visitor can, indeed is invited, to move. Looking from the front edge the visitor is immediately confronted by the large obelisk in the centre foreground (see photograph 1). To the left the visitor can see the three flagpoles along the left edge of the forecourt. The forecourt is covered in a ground red granite pebble. From this forecourt a ramp in the shape of the Commonwealth service badge rises slowly to the back of the memorial space, where a low rectangular building seems to rest on the upper edge of the ramp; the two edges of the building do not in fact rest on the ramp but are projections in space (see photographs 1, 5, 7). The low building has an opening in the front through which a boulder is visible (see photographs 5, 6, 7). On the walls of the building are service badges and scrolls listing various units and all twenty-one of the countries who formed the UN alliance. The roof of the building consists of a light greenish translucent glass dome, oval in shape—in fact in the form of the UN forces' insignia (see photograph 5). To each side of the rising ramp and in front of the front wall of the building are two 'forest' areas, consisting of two sections of stainless steel poles of 4.5 metres' height, of some 339 in number, symbolic of the number of Australian casualties. These poles are more or less orthogonally laid out but with a number of elements winding through them. Within the fields or forests there are placed figures; two in the right or northern forest, one in the left or southern forest; and winding pathways to get to the boulders and small plaques with dedicatory and other information also placed within the forests (see photographs 2, 4, 8). The figures represent all three services, uniforms and corps activities appropriate to a full(ish) sweep of Korean events, though there is an emphasis on the hostility of the colder environments in the uniforms depicted (see photographs 2, 4). Inside the building, which on first sight resembles a suburban backyard shed to some extent, one more of the Korean boulders serves as a plinth or commemorative cenotaph, while the inner walls house a number of plaques and information elements such as reproduced letters, maps, quotations of importance and more unit photographs (see photograph 3). To the right (north) of the obelisk though a little behind it is a small raised shelf on which the sign 'Korean War 1950-1953' appears (see photograph 7).

The Dedication Pamphlet quoted some of the design team's own views, observing first in particular Les Kossatz' view of the memorial:

The 'Introduction' (pp v-vi) gives a few more details as to the nature of the design and how the designers thought it should be read:

As well as meeting many if not all of the design criteria, cleverly, the chosen memorial has elements which echo some of the other memorials along Anzac Parade. There are larger than lifestyle figures echoing the Army Memorial to the north, a commemorative wall which seems like both the Vietnam and the Turkish memorials, while the inner space of contemplative ease recalls both the inner pull of the Vietnam memorial, the Service Nurses' glass green walls, and the dome of the Australian War Memorial itself. This echoing texture adds to the effect of the memorial, contextualising it in more ways than many of the others. A strong point.

Some Analysis—Some Evaluation

At first sight the shed-like construction which houses all of this sits a little uncomfortably on the back of the ramp. Indeed the hanging edges are somewhat disconcerting, but this perceived tension may be a point on which future reactions will develop. Perhaps it argues effectively that such memorials should not be comfortable, and thereby trivialised as they become too easily accepted as just newly striking or just beautiful. Certainly inside the shed-building, looking at the plaques and up through the dome is a moving and magnificent experience. The dappling light effects of the Canberran late autumn have proven delightful, and it is likely that spring and summer lights will likewise demonstrate the full effects of the shed's environmental mimesis—its symbolic mimicry of Korean meteorology (see photographs 2, 3, 8). From the front the uneasy balancing act of shed on ramp remains. By contrast the figures and boulders are placed in a sweet asymmetricality on either side of the central wall and obelisk. The two fields of steel poles—a kind of abstract forest and also symbolic of the casualties—are the most powerful element, at least symbolically. The designers see the poles as a continuation of the eucalypt canopy and also in a way as a shielding of the memorial from the surrounding suburban housing of Canberra. These poles provide an almost literally 'amazing' effect—a kind of pixel-ating or fragmenting of the figures and boulders and also the less in-focus background of trees, houses and other parts of the memorial as one circumambulates the whole memorial. This satisfies that design criteria of mimicking the environment through allowing the full effect of the play of light. Additionally and as a bonus to the beautiful luminous effect, the symbolic fragmenting of the figures and the other elements points at the very problematic nature of the desire underpinning the Korean memorial itself (see photographs 2, 4, 8). Here fragmentation mirrors—indeed speculates upon—the very nature of military memory, as partial, broken, torn and fragmented. For this alone the winning design stands as a brilliant solution to the plethora of criteria and for the need as installation to allow its visitor an experience cognate to the war.

The major central feature of the forecourt, the huge twelve-odd metres high obelisk, the right height to fit the canopy, certainly dominates the memorial (see photograph 1). Indeed, so far thrust forward in the niche is the obelisk that there may be a feeling that the Korean memorial announces itself very much more forcefully in the whole Parade than any other memorial so far. It is also worth observing that in the vocabulary of memorials as they are now refracted by a sufficiently feminist view, the Korean obelisk certainly answers the general sense of a feeling for the 1950s, that is if we are to accept the verticality of the obelisk as pre-eminently masculine. Can it be otherwise? In some ways the inter-quotations of other memorials begs and answers that question. The Service Nurses' memorial directly opposite the Korean memorial was presented by its designers as a professedly feminine memorial—its nurturing femininity is to be symbolically argued through its fundamental horizontally.12 Assuredly the Vietnam memorial designers saw the inviting inner space of contemplation as notionally about a nurturing femininity as well as referring to a merciful warriors' code. It could be observed that the Korean memorial more certainly asserts a 1950s' type masculinity—capturing a prefeminist style of memorial imagery. The designers' own description admits that the obelisk 'protrudes into the gravel forecourt and is highly visible to the passing motorist'.13 An unintended understatement it would seem, if not unintended en-gendering.

Other elements are quite cleverly functional and symbolic: The inclined plinth is shaped like the Commonwealth Division Badge, and the roof is oval shaped and reprises the form and grid of the UN symbol. It forms the symbolic umbrella of the project. And finally the designers note that their chosen colour range is of a white grey steely monochrome referring to the harsh environment of the Korean conflict.

No Longer 'Out in the Cold'

The Dedication of the memorial took place at 10 am Tuesday 18 April 2000, in the presence of the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, AC KBE, also the Patron-in-Chief of the ANKWM Committee, the Prime Minister, John Howard, MP, and many other Australian parliamentarians, military personnel and ambassadorial staff from South Korea and other allies. The Presiding Officer, Rear-Admiral Ian Crawford (Rtd), was also the Chairman of the Australian National Korean War Memorial Committee.

The whole ceremony and march past of Korean veterans was broadcast live by the ABC, although the broadcaster underestimated the duration and cut off the last elements of the march past in their live broadcast, allowing only ninety minutes when about 110 were needed. Of the 17,000 Australians who served, and were eligible to march, a conservative estimate would have had an audience and marching personnel numbering between 15-20,000 on the day.

As well as the standard array of prayers and dedicatory speeches natural to such occasions, the prayers and speeches had a particularly strong focus on service and sacrifice. And unlike a number of occasions involving military matters in the late 1980s and 1990s, politics—at least realpolitik writ large—had for once been left behind, and the ceremony focussed on the troops and memories. A number of striking features of the ceremony stood out. The audience and parade both were notably filled with large numbers of UN service personnel and their friends and families. Indeed the large Korean contingent passed out huge numbers of hand fans in Korean colours. But there was also a wondrous Korean appearance within the ceremony as Professor Choi Jung-im, of Dong Guk University, Korea, performed 'Dance of Peace' on the rising badge ramp.

More nationally, Brigadier Colin Kahn, DSO, who had been such a central presence in the Vietnam memorial process as well, read a well known poem pertinent to the occasion: Private PJ Paterson's 'To The Boys We Left Behind Us'.14 Large numbers of books, pamphlets and other printed material were also distributed. Among these the War Memorial and the Veterans' Affairs Department jointly published a small book, Out in the Cold: Australia's Involvement in the Korean War 1950-1953. Written by historian Ben Evans, the 92-page booklet extends the information contents of the competition booklet and is part of the Commemorative Programs including the 'Their Service, Our Heritage' series, of the Department of Veterans' Affairs in 2000.

Speculating About Spaces

The post-modern memorial is essentially a spectacular space in which the visitor is to some extent required to participate. They require the visitor to perform—she is invited into their environments, has to move through and experience all of the elements, make up then some kind of narrative from those elements. They do not just celebrate known events, they recreate them newly for most of their visitors—their interactants; they refashion the memory for those who need more than memory—for those who need simulated memory, or rather, their memory re-simulated. By definition this is the experience for most of their visitors after the effects of the dedication have passed. Once the Korean veterans themselves have gone for all subsequent visitors the memorial is a space of either older style museum-like experience, to look merely at objects—figures, badges, photographs—or mimed machinery, or to be invited to partially experience a simulacra of the otherwise elsewhere 'sacred site'. These memorials are in this sense interactive, like much modern installation art.

These memorials are interactive in another and probably more lasting and satisfying way. We could again say this: the axis of Anzac Parade inscribes the military narrative connecting the War Memorial to the Parliamentary triangle as symbolic of some aspects of a national image. If that is accepted then the various memorials and monuments, even shrines, can be read as paragraphs within that narrative of Australian military history. The variety of memorial, monument and statue along the parade speaks another series of narratives—partial narratives of course, derived from the history of art or rather that specific part of it that speaks in the vocabulary of public monumental or 'sacred' special space art. And those narratives are reflective of their own times of construction as much as their designers desire them to be reflective of the times which they commemorate. So the Korean Memorial is clearly aimed at being reflective of the 1950s, but is equally or more clearly a late twentieth century memory of the 1950s.

Reading the Parade as a chronological unfolding of the events cannot therefore work in any real sense, since not only are the various niches not laid out in any chronological manner, but each individual niche defies a simple temporal reading. Indeed as interactive or installed recreated events they can only ever hope to argue that history is happening now for the present and only ever 'becoming' visitor. The past is erased. In addition to formal inconsistency the niches are not consistent in other ways—some memorialize theatres of war, some not even whole wars, some units, some larger service organizations over a hundred years of service. Moreover all are more or less set back in the niches hidden partly within their canopies. True, they are legible as one drives or walks past, but this is hardly full interaction—for that the visitor has to walk down or up or even weave through the parade and the niches. Looking from the Australian War Memorial south (down) along the Parade little of the individual memorials can be seen.

One way of reading the Parade as a chronological unfolding of the events is disallowed by the parade itself. The niches which house the memorials do not have a particular order; indeed they aren't consistent in other ways—some memorialise shorter periods or small theatres, some units, some services over one hundred years. Furthermore the niches are all set back in their canopies. True they are more or less briefly legible as you drive or walk past but again you have to interact with them, have to move down or up the parade and through the individual spaces if they are to be more than spectacular. Looking from the Australian War Memorial to the Parliament most of the memorials cannot be seen.

This hidden-ness need not be seen as a negative evaluation. On the contrary: what one has along Anzac Parade is a very Australian way of presenting this kind of thing. It is fundamentally reticent, subdued. Moreover the fact that the whole of the Anzac Parade is placed within, and seems to grow organically out of, the local urban space means that apart from that large axis of the Australian War Memorial to Parliament there is an almost more important embedding of the memorials and their symbolic values within their typical communities—suburban Australia. Australian service personnel may have fought to establish and maintain the democracy symbolised by the Parliament but the nearby housing is rather more pertinently the very literal thing itself they fought for—home and hearth. With that in mind (perhaps whimsically) it may be more important not to see the tree canopy and the forest or field of poles as contiguous if not absolutely continuous with the suburban architecture behind rather than screened off from it as the designers seem to feel. In that way the box-like construction—the shed—that forms the rear feature of the Korean memorial is emblematically a small bungalow which in time will blend in with the suburb of Reid a narrow street away. Its uneasy tension atop the rising badge-shaped ramp is resolved into the domestic. There's nothing more Anzac than that.

Photographic Identifications

All the photographs are digitally modified images created by Hugh Donald of CMR, ADFA, after original digital images taken by Jeff Doyle. The dates are given to indicate (to the extent that B&W images can) the seasonal play of light that is very much a part of the design.

Photograph 1

Frontal view of the Australian National Korean War Memorial taken from the middle of Anzac Parade, Canberra, facing due West. Photograph taken in mid April 2000.

Photograph 2

Close-up of the cast aluminium figure of the Airman in the northern field of poles, with one of the Korean boulders, plaques and walkways visible behind him. The 'pixellating' light effects and the 'grey-white steel' colour tonality are also evident. Beyond that the tree canopy and the suburb of Reid are visible. Photograph taken in mid April 2000.

Photograph 3

Close-up of one of the engraved steel panels inside the contemplative space. This photograph shows the collage of 'typical' Korean images chosen to provide both educational and heritage values. Photograph taken in mid April 2000.

Photograph 4

Close-up of the cast aluminium figure of the Sailor loading a shell clearly showing the winter combat uniform. The beautiful patina of the figures is clearly visible, and behind him the field of poles, a Korean boulder, and a dedication plaque can be seen. Photograph taken in mid April 2000.

Photograph 5

The external walls of the contemplative space with their unit badges and scrollwork. In the middle of the image the inside of the contemplative space is visible, with another Korean boulder acting as a focal point for ceremonial occasions. Above it the elliptical oculus, open to the sky, can be glimpsed. Photograph taken in late October 2000.

Photograph 6

Close-up of the ceremonial cenotaph-like boulder inside the contemplative space. Above and behind it on the engraved steel walls are the inscription and a Korean dedication. Photograph taken in late October 2000.

Photograph 7

Detail of the northern exterior walls of the contemplative space. In this image the 'hanging' or suspended effect of the contemplative space construction can be clearly seen. In front of the space, to the right of the ascending badge-shaped plinth is the lettering identifying the memorial. Photograph taken in late October 2000.

Photograph 8

Detail of the southern field of poles in which three of the Korean boulders, the winding pathways and another dedicatory plaque are visible. Photograph taken in mid April 2000.