Even today, with the Australian War Memorial’s $550m (and counting) Big Build more than half completed, Main Stream Media (and other media) often still use old photographs of the place, pre-Big Build. Here’s a popular one:
(GordonMakryllos, Wikipedia, 2017, CC BY-SA4.0)
Folks, it doesn’t look like that now. Here’s how it looked a few days ago:
(Supplied)
If those stairs look steep and requiring care in the descent, that’s because they are and they do. Even the soldiers on Anzac Day had to step carefully. The steps look like a cheap build and we suspect they are designed to meet the minimum code compliance. Wear shoes with patterned soles, folks.
If, as has been suggested, the former main entrance to which these stairs lead will revert to a ceremonial entrance, with most visitors most of the time coming in by the main entrances on either side of and under those big stairs, there’ll need to be some bollards across the foot of the stairs, to keep people out. Or perhaps something like the evzones in front of the Greek Parliament House in Athens.
More pictures from our Canberra snapper, taken on or about 27 April 2025: barriers to keep people safe on Anzac Day; the new Anzac Hall takes shape; the big new wall at the front; the new Anzac Hall from Mt Ainslie (below). (Uncropped version of this photo.)
(Supplied)
A heritage consultant says of this view:
From the rear and sides there is now no sense of the original building as a free standing form – just a new huge mass with a dome topped rectangle in the middle. The Memorial building has just gone.
For comparison, here is the original building in 1941:
Aerial view of the Australian War Memorial taken the day before the official opening of the Memorial on Remembrance Day 1941 (AWM; Accession Number: P02169.001)
29 April 2025
