2020 National Architecture Awards: The Nicholas Murcutt Award for Small Project Architecture

Jury citation

The task of adequately acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander diggers, within the shadows of the Australian War Memorial, brought with it much responsibility. For Our Country is a simple concept, expertly executed with precision and clarity while concealing a degree of complexity in thinking not readily apparent. A careful interplay of light and shadow, tactility and symbolism, is carefully calibrated and expressed through the work of artist Daniel Boyd, a Kudjla/Gangalu man from North Queensland, alongside the adept touch of Edition O ffice.

The decision to commission a permanent national memorial recognizing the military service of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples cannot be understated. This important work is of particular significance and prescience in 2020, in light of the recent Black Lives Matter movement. It is as evocative and powerful as it is subtly provocative in its commitment to truth-telling within an intimate yet accessible moment of introspection.

From the basalt stone field curtilage evoking the material culture of weaponry, to the two-way mirrored lens that powerfully reflects the silhouette of nearby Mount Ainslie on Ngunnawal Country, to the neutrally textured rammed-earth wall that envelops the visitor in a contemplative embrace, the project elicits the best of architecture to simultaneously choreograph experience and gravity.

The considered response further embeds a legacy through the invitation to Elders to bring fragments of Country in the form of soil; these offerings, contained within a subterranean cast bronze vessel, form a perpetual archive of the diversity of Nations within a Nation.

To fully appreciate the invitation to pause within the memorial’s contemplative context, one is encouraged to chase the light at either dawn or dusk – to viscerally connect to the significance and distortions of reflection, while considering the centrality of individual empathy through the weight of history and the power of ritual.

For more coverage, read the project review by Andrew Burns in Architecture Australia Jul/Aug 2020.

Project credits

Architect Edition Office and Daniel Boyd; Project team Kim Bridgland, Aaron Roberts, Daniel Boyd; Structural engineer David Farrar; Builder RAM Constructions; Glazing engineer Arup; Rammed earth Olnee Constructions; Bronze casting UAP; Glass supplier Clear Glass Solutions

For Our Country is located in Campbell, Australian Capital Territory, on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples of the Ngunnawal nation.