New Zealand Memorial, Canberra

By Studio Pacific Architecture

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New Zealand Memorial, Canberra banner
Project by
Year of completion
2001
Client
Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Building plans
379 planscan

Canberra, Australia 2001

In collaboration with the sculptor Kingsley Baird, Studio Pacific won an international competition to design this memorial, sited on Anzac Parade in Canberra, to commemorate the relationship between Australia and New Zealand.

The purpose of the memorial is to express a shared historical, cultural, social, spiritual, economic and geographic closeness.

Woven from solid bronze, the final sculpture, representing the handles of a kete rising from the earth, was inspired by the Maori proverb “mau tena kiwai o te kete, maku tenei”, which translates loosely as “you at this handle, I at this handle of the kete”. The sculpture is a metaphor for cooperating, working together, sharing experiences and, in wartime, sharing the load of losses. Eight bronze niho niho or triangular teeth at the base represent the emerging rim of the basket, strengthening the link between the handles and the ground. The text of Jenny Bornholdt’s specially commissioned poem is cast into the niho niho.

The paving beneath the handles is also significant, with the eastern side bearing a Maori design and the western an Aboriginal design. The centre stone on the eastern side is granite taken from the Coromandel Peninsula and placed over soil taken from Chunuk Bair, where New Zealanders fought at Gallipoli and a piece of Australian granite covers soil from Lone Pine, where Australians fought. Both countries’ prime ministers conducted a ceremonial opening of the new memorial on Anzac Day 2001.

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New Zealand Memorial, Canberra

About the
Professional

Shaping Our Pacific Future – We are a cross-disciplinary architecture, interior, landscape and urban design practice shaping a more sustainable and people-centric built environment across the buildings, neighbourhoods, cities, and landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Studio Pacific was established in 1992 by friends and colleagues Evžen NovákNick Barratt-Boyes, and Stephen McDougall. After working in the UK and Europe, the three architects were drawn back home by a shared desire to form a collaborative and innovative practice in Te Whanganui-a-Tara – Wellington.

They opened an architecture studio ‘of the Pacific’, applying their creativity to projects that engaged with, and elevated, context and culture. Over the years, this has grown into a compelling manifesto to shape our collective Pacific future, where people and the planet are at the heart of our built environment.

Today, we are a team of around 100 – including architects, urban designers, landscape architects, interior designers and business professionals. We bring diversity in thinking and design, and a democratic culture ensures clever ideas come from all corners of the practice, not necessarily from those who have been here the longest.

Open-minded, collaborative and creative, our practice has evolved into a leading and award-winning business, working on a wide range of exciting projects that seek to make Aotearoa New Zealand a better place.