Clothing the Nation: Representing a Distinctively Australian National Identity in World War I Memorial Architecture.

Large-scale state and national memorials to World War I dead embody complex symbolism, spanning pride and grief. Built at a time when Australia sought to assert a more independent national identity, they provoke the question of how Australian designers chose to express national identity through the medium of commemorative architecture. To address this question, this article examines a range of designs submitted to three major Australian competitions held in the 1920s: for the National War Memorial of Victoria (Melbourne), the Australian War Memorial (Canberra), and the Australian Memorial (Villers-Bretonneux, France). It draws on visual documentation of these designs, unpublished competition reviews, and responses from the contemporary press, while its examination of both built and unbuilt designs enables a new analysis of contemporary architectural thought about memorials. In looking beyond the predominantly classical nature of these designs, this article discerns efforts by designers to create a deeper symbolic representation of nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]