ABSTRACT
The Cenotaph, London's permanent memorial to the unknown warrior, was not planned by some high-up committee, but forced on the authorities by spontaneous public sentiment. Originally, the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens was asked to design a temporary wood and plaster shrine. With the suburb only a couple of decades old, the memorial to those who died in the First World War became the focal point. Likewise in town after town in Australia, where often more than a quarter of those who went to fight the mother country's war did not return, it is the war memorial that has become the town's focal point. In this federal nation where loyalty to the local state or city is intense, the one building that symbolizes the entire nation of Australia is the War Memorial in Canberra. So many war memorials that rise in triumph high above the ground, the Vietnam memorial is sunk into the ground.
