The Memorial tothe Missing of the Somme

[Tom Morgan]

I just finished this one - rather unusual in that it's a whole book just about the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

It's an account of How Sir Edwin Lutyens came to design the Memorial as a result of his previous designs and thinking, how the CWGC came to choose him as the architect and why the Memorial came to built at all. It also covers what the Memorial stands for and just how complex it is. I've seen it hundreds of times, but never really looked at it closely - it isn't just a big architectural block with tunnels cut into it. It isn't a simple as that, and must have taken an enormous amount of thought to design. In fact it must have been impossible unless the architect had the ability to visualise things in three dimensions - and it seems that Lutyens was able to do that.

The book is a bit scholarly in parts when discussing some aspects of architectural thought, but the author has clear views about Remembrance (which not everyone will agree with) and I'm glad I bought the book.

ISBN13: 978-1-86197-896-7

ISBN10: 1-86197-896-0

Tom