Thiepval Monument- opinions

[mebu]

Oops, sorry if it's a bit big. By the way, I think this sketch shows that the suggestion that it was designed to straddle a road is not correct, but for people to walk around.

[paul guthrie]

A US WFA guy Bob Lambert took the pictures of all directions from top of Thiepval.

Guys, I realize the importance of Vimy to Canada, a country I admire greatly. I rarely express my opinion of the memorial for fear of offending Canadians.

The US is guilty of gigantism at times, see monument at Hill 204 above Chateau Thierry, it's monstrous, and celebrates action of only a few days. Also tower at Montfaucon but it has the advantage of a great platform to view Argonne & much of Verdun battlefields.

[ianw]

Broadly speaking agree with opinions expressed here. When you visit Thiepval, the experience transcends mere architectural study. Looming out of a mist it is really breathtaking as it seems to crouch within the landscape seemingly wanting to protect the Dead whose names it bears. Even surrounded by crowds on a sunny 1st July, it remains aloof , as if tolerating the ceremonials rather than welcoming them.

On a practical basis, it has to be massive to carry the sheer number of names it is charged with commemorating. It bulk dominates the battlefield and is a fantastic topographical reference from all sorts of places. It seems to call to you whenever you are in that part of the somme battlefields and it's a siren call that one seems obliged to respond to. It is the distilled experience of the Great War massively built in brick.

[Tom Morgan]

Oops, sorry if it's a bit big. By the way, I think this sketch shows that the suggestion that it was designed to straddle a road is not correct, but for people to walk around.

Mebu - how can you be sure of that?

The sketch shows the memorial looking very much as it does today, but how do you know it was the first, and only design sketch?

The sketch doesn't prove that Lutyens always intended the memorial to look like this, and it doesn't disprove the suggestion that his original plan was for the memorial to straddle a road.

Tom

[Chris_Baker]

I have to say that Thiepval is my second least-liked memorial in France. I find it industrial and blank; it neither inspires me, or impresses me. Except that it is big. I find the Franco-British cemetery an oddly soulless place too. Don't know why, just do.

For the curious, my least-liked is the rather large lady at Meaux.

[Tom Morgan]

As a follow-up to my own last posting:

Martin Middlebrook's account of his research re the Memorial, Lutyens, road-straddling and originally plans for location is on-line HERE.

Tom

[mebu]

Tom, yes you are correct, the drawing is not definitive, but I think it's the only contemporary info we have? I seem to remember RIBA (architects) putting it out as original concept, but maybe he had others.....I seem to remember the same discussion about 4-5 years ago in WFA mag, following comment on original over- road siting by Martin Middlebrook, I don't think that discussion was conclusive either way. Interesting though!

Peter Mebu.

P.S. just looked at a photo of Menin Rd. Someone said they looked very similar? Apart from the fact of the arch, can one really say they are similar?

[Mark A]

Ian W- agree about the geographical siting of it and the fact it's such a landmark. Useful for touring the battlefields... and appropiate that a memorial to the missing is so unmissable! Also agree it seems aloof... not exactly unwelcoming but it silences me. My wife noticed she was whispering when we were there- odd.

Chris- what's your favourite memorial then?

M

[Tom Morgan]

P.S. just looked at a photo of Menin Rd. Someone said they looked very similar? Apart from the fact of the arch, can one really say they are similar?

Not really Peter! I agree - it does take quite a stretch of the imagination to visualise that kind of similarity and it isn't something which I automatically see myself.

Tom

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

The sketch doesn't prove that Lutyens always intended the memorial to look like this, and it doesn't disprove the suggestion that his original plan was for the memorial to straddle a road.

Tom - many years ago, when researching an article for Stand To!, I came across material about this original proposal for the main Somme memorial to straddle the road at Poziers in TNA (PRO) record class WO32. I (now) havent got a clue where it was, exactly, but probably in documents about the WO32/58 - - series. It is definitely there, but you may have a bit of reading to do to find it !

There is also material in there about the proposal to ring-fence the whole Ypres Salient as a permanent Battlefield Memorial (the Belgians wanted Ypres "back", thank you !), and also proposals to leave the whole Western Front as it was - which was obviously a bit far-fetched, but nevertheless was proposed and discussed.

regards - Tom

[mebu]

Tom just found the caption, from the RIBA British Architectural Library Drawings Collection for the Lutyens sketch..."Perspective sketch of preliminary design, on writing paper, c. 1923". The pedestrians show that not only is it not over a road, but the thing looks designed to walk around with the side arches, not whizz through at 35mph. I posted this on to the forum not as an answer, just an offering...for a definitive answer, this must be set in context with the apparent, but undated, and undetailed, correspondence at CWGC, and Tom's new info on possible file at PRO WO series. All respects to Martin M, but his report is brief, relying solely on the CWGC 2nd hand info. There is an interesting project here for someone? Peter

[paul guthrie]

The large lady at Meaux has to be seen to be believed. It was erected by the American Friends of France, the largely Ivy League men who were the American Field Ambulance Service prior to US entry to the victors of the Marne.

Ian has a good point, not easy to design something to list 77000 names, the Missing of the Somme. I like it, it's dignity, but no it's not beautiful.

[Guest DNH]

How each of us approaches a memorial, and what we expect to get from one, is an interesting concept, as a thread in the Cemeteries and Memorials section about the use of Tyne Cot as a background for wedding photos also shows.

The philosophy behind building memorials is an ancient one, and Greeks and Romans had very different ideas about this. The Greek word derives from the word meaning memory, and the structure is therefore designed to bring a memory back. Increasingly difficult nowadays as the diminishing number of WW1 vets means that few of us can recall them, and fewer still knew anybody commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

The Latin word, from which we get the word monument, derives from the verb meaning advise or warn, and therefore embodies political or moralistic notions - the language commonly used in CWGC sites tells us what these notions are: 'their name liveth for evermore', 'a soldier of the Great War known unto God' etc and there was considerable discussion and revision of what phrases should be used, and the message that should be conveyed. Each of the member governments of the CWGC continue to support financially that work and those messages.

As for the architecture, I find it quite stunning. I think it can be quite intimate and private in amongst the arches yet the whole monument is breathtaking in scale. It seems to have the proportions of some of the great gothic cathedrals whilst using more aesthetically pleasing (to my eye) classical arches. I think it is spiritual without being religious. It is only a shame that the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool, which Lutyens designed as a further development of his work, was not built as designed.

Perhaps this discussion itself is evidence that the memorial or monument is performing its function admirably - namely that 90 years later it is still prompting reflection, sorrow, pride, admiration, wonder, perhaps even anger.

Cheers

DNH

[Somme1916]

Impressive in size and scope but I'm afraid I don't really like it very much. I think it's the brick, the brick makes it look like an office building. I wish both it and the Menin Gate were covered in another type of covering.

Jon

[burlington]

I think it's the brick, the brick makes it look like an office building.

Jon

Isn't this replacement brick? Apparently, the original nicer brick started to weather too much. The replacements are, I think, a London hard brick. Quite unforgiving.

At least, that is what I have read.

Martin

[James Power]

Over the past 40 odd years I've noticed how the trees surrounding the Thiepval Memorial have grown to such an extent that only the upper elevations of the Memorial are now visible when viewed from afar (with the exception of when viewed from the direction of 'Mucky Farm' and a narrow angle from across the Ancre).

The significance and importance of this memorial is such that in my view it should be seen in all its 'majesty' from all angles, as opposed to being almost three-quarters concealed by the surrounding woodland.

I fully appreciate how the original planting of trees had clear aesthetic benefits (as they still do…), for I'm sure it can be convincingly argued that the such growth 'softens' the otherwise stark lines of the memorial. I just feel that this important memorial should stand proud on the Thiepval Ridge for all to see from miles around (as was intended) with trees acting as an ancillary feature and not an impediment to its grandeur.

Regards

James

[PhilB]

Interestingly, the Thiepval memorial holds roughly as many names as the US Vietnam memorial. (77,000 v 60,000?). The two could hardly be more different. I find the Washington wall easier to empathise with, though, of course, I might have thought differently 80 years ago. Phil B

[paul guthrie]

Interestingly, the Thiepval memorial holds roughly as many names as the US Vietnam memorial. (77,000 v 60,000?). The two could hardly be more different. I find the Washington wall easier to empathise with, though, of course, I might have thought differently 80 years ago. Phil B

Pretty big difference here, a won war that had to be fought versus a lost one that did not. It shows.

[PhilB]

Paul, in that case, one wonders what the Iraq monument might look like, when/if the Americans get round to erecting one? Phil B

[RichardH]

I think it's the brick, the brick makes it look like an office building. 

Jon

Isn't this replacement brick? Apparently, the original nicer brick started to weather too much. The replacements are, I think, a London hard brick. Quite unforgiving.

At least, that is what I have read.

Martin

I have a newspaper clipping from the early 80s covering this- it states the bricks were originally local but the recladding took place with half a million very durable red sandfaced bricks locally produced by the Accrington Brick and Tile Company. The clipping is undated, but obviously early 80s, from a local Accrington newspaper- <offtopic> it fell out of a diary I bought off ebay covering a 1937 tour of the battlefields, complete with a few pictures, a poppy, and an inserted cover note from the same diarist in 1984.

Regards

Richard

[AndyHollinger]

It's not pretty but I like it, look to the left & To The Missing, to the right Of The Somme.

I do not like Vimy, it reminds me of Soviet monuments.

Wnn I first read your commentary ... it did strike me as true ... TOO HUGE to be anything REAL ... it is Soviet in its appearance isn't it. But, even if that is true ... it is so beautiful, so BIG ... so totally un-American, un-Modern, un-anything you'll ever see in North America ... it has struck me like no other ... it is unique in all the monuments I've seen and appreciated ...

[Cynthia]

I think the sheer enormity of it, the hulking steadfastness of it and what it commemorates, transcends its ugly appearance. When Ian and I were there last year, it faded in and out of the fog as if it really was not there at all. To think that it might not be, and what that would mean for those nearly 73,000 names that are there forevermore.

Here is a photo taken in November as the memorial faded back into view.

Cynthia

[Guest]

Imposing but not beautiful? I agree, but the style is true to the time it was built.

It may not be located at the highest point of the battlefield, but it is pretty high and visible at distance in places. To me, this justifies the design. And at a distance detail is less important.

Anyway, there it is and there it stays.

Personally, I get more drawn to the Menen Gate, but perhaps this is because I like Ieper as a town. Being in a town, the scale and perspective is totally different to Thiepval and detail is much more important.

By the way, before anyone objects, in relation to present day Flanders I use Flemmish names and spellings. The old French names are fine for historical purposes, but not for contemporary use in my opinion.

[James Power]

The old French names are fine for historical purposes, but not for contemporary use in my opinion.

It's interesting to note that the Ieper's own tourism web site spells Menin (Gate) as just that, and not 'Menin'. Try telling the CWGC that you have renamed their memorial!

Regards

James

[Bert Heyvaert]

Here's an interesting view from Jay Winter's 'sites of memory, sites of mourning':

"One prominent recent interpreter, the architectural historian Vincent Scully, has described the face of the Thiepval memorial as 'a silent scream', a cry of protest against the unimaginable suffering of the battle of the Somme. This is probably mistaken, though a good indication of the extent to which great art attracts different meanings in different generations. It is difficult to accept Scully's view that Thiepval was meant to be 'an enormous monster' with 'demonic eyes' or a 'horrific mask'. We of the late twentieth century see these things in the monument, but Lutyens did not put them there. He was a conventional patriot, whose wartime swings of mood followed closely the trajectory of the fortunes of the British Army. Pacifism was simply not in his bones."

and

"Lutyens' monument to the missing at Thiepval is not a cry against war, but an extraordinary statement in abstract language about mass death and the impossibility of triumphalism. In Thiepval Lutyens diminished the arch of triumph of Roman and French art, and indeed of his own imperial designs in New Delhi, executed on the eve of the war, literally to the vanishing point. Whether or not his calculations had it in mind, it is a singular fact that the most imposing view of this monument is from the air, where it presents a majestic form, light and eternal, invisible to those of us who come to Thiepval, as the soldiers did in 1916, on foot"

extracts taken from

WINTER, J. 1995. Sites of memory, sites of mourning: the Great War in European cultural history. pp. 105-108.