Design competition to honour forgotten soldiers
THE Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) officially launched its memorial architectural design competition, to honour the several black and coloured South Africans who died during World War I.
A memorial commissioned by the CWGC will be erected in the Company Gardens in Cape Town, commemorating previously forgotten South Africans from various labour units, believed to be buried in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.
The competition opened yesterday at the Cape Institute for Architecture, Hout Street, Cape Town, and will close on June 2.
It is open to all architects and architectural technologists registered with the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP).
The commission honours the 1.7 million people who died serving the British Empire during the World Wars I and II, and began building cemeteries and memorials across the world in the wake of World War I (1914–1918). It now maintains sites at 23 000 locations in more than 150 countries.
Through new research, the commission uncovered, in the South African archives, the names of over 1 600 black and coloured South Africans who served and died on African soil in World War I.
“We take a tangible step in honouring 1 600 South Africans who served in the military labour units and for far too long, have been overlooked,” Liz Woodfield, the commission’s director of external relations, said.
“They were casualties, not just because of the conflict of World War I, but of indifference to their service, suffering, and sacrifice. In bringing their names home, I hope that generations of South Africans will visit the memorial once it is built. (I hope they) will, through their education and remembrance activities, add detail to the rich story of South Africa’s history, and depart the better for the experience of coming to know these men and honouring them,” Woodfield said.
Tiaan Meyer, the lead commission project advisor and director of Meyer and Associates Architects and Urban Designer, said: “This next step in the project will commence and set the tone to write the next chapter of our history.”
CWGC media and PR executive Peter Francis said by September, the commission aimed to have an approved design, and will look to commence construction in 2023.
“The competition is designed to encourage the best of South Africa’s architectural community to deliver a practical but innovative design for the new memorial that will serve to honour these men in a manner befitting their sacrifice, and add to the rich architectural heritage of the CWGC and South Africa,” Francis said.
“The cost of the memorial will largely depend upon the solution chosen, but the memorial will be built, paid for, and cared for by the CWGC in perpetuity,” he said.
Contestants will be notified of their successful registration and details of the brief will be ready for download by June 9 and the winning design announced on August 31, 2022.
To register for the competition, visit https://cwgcmemorialcompetition.co.za/