Lagos-based Oshinowo Studio has unveiled plans to add a glass war memorial to an Edwin Lutyens-designed plinth in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Situated in a courtyard overlooked by government buildings, the memorial was commissioned by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to commemorate members of the Sierra Leone Carrier Corps – men enlisted to transport supplies and materials – who died during world war one.
“The main concept for the memorial was to find a way to very strongly, conceptually, visually and materially pay homage, and give some kind of celebrated acknowledgement for the carrier corps who had not previously been commemorated,” Oshinowo Studio founder Tosin Oshinowo told Dezeen.
“The site is constrained, sitting on a small land mass of approximately six-metres by seven-metres, therefore, it seemed very natural to look at the elongation of the existing obelisk.”
The Freetown memorial’s four glass panels will rise nine metres atop the existing stone plinth, which was designed by Lutyens in 1930 and lists names of fallen soldiers, but not members of the Carrier Corps.
To commemorate them, Oshinowo Studio designed each glass screen to be etched with names of the 946 fallen Carrier Corps, which have been uncovered by historians at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in tandem with locally-based heritage consultants.
“The relationship between stone and glass was selected to reflect a feeling of permanence of the existing structure, and a more ephemeral nature of the addition to the monument which would have the names of the Carrier Corps,” Oshinowo explained.
Adding to the memorial’s ethereal quality, a beacon of light will be integrated into the structure – shining through the centre of the glass screens to create a beam visible from a 2.5-kilometre radius.
“As the site sits in a restricted area, with public access limited, we wanted to ensure the monument remains as a symbol for all people across Freetown,” Oshinowo explained.
Alongside the main memorial, four additional satellite sites will be built in provinces from which the Carrier Corps were enlisted.
Set to begin construction this year, the memorial by Oshinowo Studio will be the first CWGC memorial to be designed by a woman.
Previous projects by the studio include an Adidas store wrapped in perforated aluminium sheets and a “solid and porous” villa in Lagos.
Recently, proposals for a memorial to Queen Elizabeth II in London were revealed by Foster + Partners, Heatherwick Studio and WilkinsonEyre. Also in London, five architecture studios were shortlisted to design the memorial for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The visualisation is by Hayes Davidson.
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