It is a hard subject to memorialise – to recognise at once the courage and loss of airmen, and the awfulness of the thing they were told to do – the more so as the debate will never end as to whether bombing civilian targets was then the best or only available way of speeding the defeat of the Nazis. — Guardian
Rowan Moore reviews that RAF's Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, London. The memorial he reports has none of the nuance or complexity one might hope for. The mix of classicism and lack of historical reflection results in a project which leaves Mr. Moore thinking there could have been "better ways than this".
1 Comment
I don't think anyone expects Rowan Moore to approve of anything classical. This is a fabulous war memorial and an impressive and poignant reminder of the crews and their overwhelming sacrifice - 50% of them didn't return - and fits the vocabulary of 'war memorial' with gravity, sensitivity and tact.
In a poignant way it also reflects both the world that was destroyed across so much of central Europe - so many of which are only now the subject of reconstruction proposals - and the immortality of those who fought to save Europe from Fascism.
I dread the thought of a monument that, instead of memorialising the aircrews, sought to express more about the identity of the architect who created it, as we might have expected from many modern architects. This new monument says nothing about its architect, and everything about the people who died and the city in which it stands.
Let us celebrate a sombre contribution to London and the memory of those young people who died. This should not become a battleground for the architectural style wars.
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