To commemorate the centennial of Passchendaele, one of the most significant battles of World War I, the Passchendaele Memorial Museum, just outside Ypres, commissioned poppy-shaped memorial gardens from seven countries, including New Zealand.

Boffa Miskell’s design proposal was selected as the winning entry in an invited competition run by the New Zealand-based Passchendaele Society.

The design expresses a uniquely New Zealand aesthetic in the Passchendaele location. An essential element was to bring as many elements as possible from New Zealand – particularly the aggregate and the stone, as those truly are ‘of the earth’. This memorial, quite literally, is a part of Aotearoa brought to Passchendaele.

The museum’s design brief required where each memorial responds to three themes: remembrance through plant symbolism, remembrance through visual art and remembrance through literature. These themes are treated as discrete design elements within the individual petals and throughout the whole poppy installation, as a way to unify the space as a single installation, exhibit and experience

Project team

• Cathy Challinor
• Kieran Dove

Worked with

• Jagas
• Gary McShane
• Rob Walsham, Envivo