1921 – Selected design for Canadian National Vimy Memorial, France

This design selected in October 1921 was to be built on Hill 62 overlooking the Ypres Salient. Prime Minister Mackenzie King speaking in the House of Commons of Canada in May 1922, argued in favour of placing the memorial at Vimy Ridge. King’s position received the unanimous support of the House and, in the end, the Canadian Battlefields Memorial Commission selected Vimy Ridge as the preferred site. France ceded to Canada the perpetual use of a portion of land on Vimy Ridge on the understanding that Canada use the land to establish a battlefield park and memorial. The project took Allward eleven years to build. King Edward VIII unveiled it on 26 July 1936 in the presence of French President Albert Lebrun and a crowd of over 50,000 people, including 6,200 attendees from Canada.

The supporting description read: “At the base of the strong impregnable walls of defence are the Defenders, one group showing the Breaking of the Sword, the other the Sympathy of the Canadians for the Helpless. Above these are the mouths of guns covered with olive and laurels. On the wall stands an heroic figure of Canada brooding over the graves of her valiant dead; below is suggested a grave with a helmet, laurels, etc. Behind her stands two pylons symbolising the two forces — Canadian and French — while between, at the base of these is the Spirit of Sacrifice who, giving all. throws the torch to his Comrade. Looking up they see the figures of Peace. Justice, Truth and Knowledge, etc., for which they fought, chanting the hymn of Peace. Around these figures arc the shields of Britain, Canada and France. On the outside of the pylons is the Cross.”

The jury commented on the design “Of these designs, by Mr. Allward and Mr. Clemesha, that by Mr. Allward, which in our opinion is exceptionally fine and makes a very high appeal to the imagination, wesuggest should be erected once only and should be placed on the site on Hill 62. It is a design suited to a low hill rather than to a continuous and lofty bluff or cliff like Vimy Ridge, where its delicacy of line would be lost in the mass of the ridge. On the Hill 62 site, moreover, it would be approached by the new road over a mile in length which the Commission has already made and from the top of the hill it would command the whole of the area of the Ypres Salient. It is, however, a design of such individuality and complexity that its character precludes it from the possibility of repetition elsewhere.”

The assessors were Frank Darling, representing the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada; Paul P. Cret, representing the Society Centrale des Architectes (Paris); Professor C. H. Reilly, C.B.H, M.A., F.R.I.B.A., representing the Royal Institute of British Architects. The Canadian architect Percy E. Nobbs was the Architectural Adviser of the commission.

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