ANZAC Square - Brisbane War Memorial
Much of Queensland's memories of the war were laden in
the ANZAC Square in Brisbane, a state memorial which name
serves as a state memorial to the members of the Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps, to the men and women who have
lost their lives in the wars of the past. This place of
serenity is located between Ann Street and Adelaide Street,
against the busy city life of Brisbane.
The ANZAC Square contains the Shrine of Memories and is
proliferated with statues of soldiers at war, from those who
fought during the Second Boer War in South Africa to the
Second World War to the Vietnam War. However, the most
emotional and spine-tingling experience could happen to
someone setting foot in the Shrine of Remembrance and the
Eternal Flame on the 25th of April or ANZAC Day, with its
structure built as a tribute to the soldiers who sacrificed
their lives for motherland’s sake, a moment of reflection
that will help history’s past fly forward to the present.
Being the dominant feature of the ANZAC Square, and is
surrounded by pools and Bottle
trees the Shrine of
Remembrance’s architecture is patterned in an enchanting
Greek Classic Revival style, just like that of a 2300 year
old Greek temple. Its columns are built of Helidon sandstone
which stand on a three tiered base of Queensland granite,
the same material used on the staircase that leads to it
from the ANZAC Square.
Symbols of the First World War have been used
extensively in the formation of the structure. The year when
the war ended, 1918, or “The Year of Peace” was signified
into two important aspects of the temple. The two sections
of the staircase that lead to the Shrine vary in number:
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other has eighteen (the merger of the numbers would yield
the figures 1918). The columns that surround the temple also
numbered to eighteen, which also symbolizes the year. Other
significations include the inscribed metal letterings inside
the shrine which bear the
names of the major battles in World War I where
Australians soldiers have fought. There are also glass
panels where soil samples collected from battlefields on
which Australian soldiers died and soils from war
cemeteries. There is also the Eternal Flame housed
by a brass urn, which burns in memory of the departed
soldiers.
Considered as the most solemn and striking event in the
Shrine is the annual Dawn memorial service every 25th of
April or ANZAC Day, wherein huge crowds participate to pay
respect and lay wreaths at the Eternal Flame. Another
memorial service serves as commemoration to the day the
Shrine was dedicated: November 11, 1930 also known as
Armistice Day.
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