Description: Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance is a huge memorial erected originally to honour the Victorian soldiers killed in the First World War and whose purpose was then extended to honouring all the men and women who served and died in armed conflicts since.
The Shrine sits at an elevated position on the south bank of the Yarra river, to the side of the wide boulevard of St Kilda Road, next to the Melbourne's splendid Botanic Gardens and in addition to honouring the war dead it also provides a vantage viewpoint down St Kilda road all the way to the Sydney CBD.
The ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) spirit is one of the archetypal concepts in the Australian psyche and every community has a war memorial (often called ANZAC Memorial), just like pretty much every British town and village has a Cenotaph of some kind. The Australian memorials tend to be rather large, not to say lavish and for those used to the numbers of war dead in European countries, the numbers commemorated by the Australian war memorials might seem insignificant: the total number of Victorians killed in WW1 was less than 20,000 in comparison to UK's almost million or France's 1.4 million. Even as a proportion of population it was also a significantly lower figure at 1.4% of the population (UK lost over 2% of the population, France 4.3%, Germany and Austria-Hungary over 3%). Possibly it was the deep, and never really properly expressed feeling of utter unfairness of those deaths, the people who fell in a war thousands of miles away from home, in a dubious defence of an empire from whose centre they were very far, against an enemy that was never a direct threat to their country.
It's surprising how little such sentiments are still officially expressed, and how much of a unarguable-given is the idea that the Great War ANZAC soldiers died actually defending their homes and families. The memorial doesn't really mention the futility of war (any war), and the pageantry and ceremony that still surrounds the Shrine doesn't either: it honours the sacrifices and commemorates the acts of individual heroism, a soldier helping a soldier; but it never questions wars itself, it's not a peace monument by any means.
The external design of the Shrine is based on the Mausoleum of Harlicarnassus, although as many buildings from the 1930's it has a rather uncomfortable heaviness that is often associated with architecture of the totalitarian empires of that era. Inside, the centre of the Shrine is in the Sanctuary, where a black marble stone with "greater love hath no man" engraved on it. At 11am on the 11th of November a ray of light falling through the specially positioned opening in the Sanctuary roof falls on the word "love" in the inscription. This is re-enacted daily with a use of an artificial spotlight mimicking the natural sun, and a short ceremony is performed in the Sanctuary.
The Crypt under the Sanctuary displays regimental colours and a bronze statue of a father and son to honour two generations of Victorians fallen in two world wars, although the main WW2 memorial is the forecourt with the Cenotaph, Eternal Flame and flagpoles.
The Shrine of Remembrance is free to enter and has a visitors' centre with memorabilia and audio-visual displays, entered through a striking modern courtyard reminiscent of a stylised bomb-blast mark, with "lest we forget"etched on the wall. This is perhaps the most modern and one of the most moving areas in the shrine, and looks particularly dramatic from the Shrine's viewing balcony.
Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance offers a fascinating insight into Australian part in the world wars and the effects engagement in those wars had on the Australian psyche. It honours the war dead without denouncing the war, and in this way harks to the imperial past that is still so surprisingly ever-present in Australia.
Close