Sunny daytime view from across the Pool of Reflection: the whole stepped south face with its tall arched opening, corner sculptures and flagpoles, apartment towers behind.

Anzac Memorial

Hyde Park South, Sydney

C. Bruce Dellit, with sculptor Rayner Hoff. 1932 to 1934. Art Deco.

Size
30 m high
Material
Concrete clad in pink to red granite; cast stone figures; amber glass
Status
State Heritage Register, 2010. A centenary extension with underground spaces and Dellit’s planned water cascade opened in 2018

Dellit won a field of more than 100 entries in 1930, and Hoff then replaced his allegories with figures of the actual services. Hoff’s two great bronze groups, with nude women at their centres, drew such criticism in 1932 that he destroyed the plaster models, and they were never cast. His Sacrifice inside shows a dead soldier on a shield carried by three women. Funding fell short and the controversy had cost the project support, so the returned servicemen sold gilded plaster stars at two shillings each. About 120,000 went into the dome, one for every volunteer from New South Wales. About 100,000 people came to the opening, and the Catholic Coadjutor Archbishop, Michael Sheehan, boycotted it.

Read about Art Deco in Sydney

Sources

  1. The History of the Anzac Memorial, Anzac Memorial
  2. Anzac Memorial, Wikipedia
  3. Anzac War Memorial Hyde Park (Ellmoos, 2008), Dictionary of Sydney
  4. Centenary Project, Anzac Memorial
  5. Collection item, opening of the Anzac Memorial, State Library of NSW