LONGUEVAL, FRANCE

With Creative Axis Architects and Anix Consulting

Winner: 2018 South African Institute for Architects Award of Excellence
Winner: 2017 Gauteng Institute for Architecture Award of Merit
Winner: 2017 SAPOA Property Development Awards for Innovative Excellence 

The new memorial at Delville Wood, Longueval, France, was commissioned by the South African Government to commemorate the centenary of the infamous World War 1 battle.  The memorial, carefully inserted between the original historic 1926 Herbert Baker memorial and the 1986 Delville Wood Museum, takes the form of a trench like slice into the earth.  The walls of the memorial are lined with engraved sandstone panels bearing the names of all South African soldiers who died during the war regardless of race or rank.  The new memorial becomes a device to mediate between the complex social and political history of the site.  It is a new historical layer that both respects and balances the representations of South Africa and the past that the older memorials embody.