Eternal Flame Cotton Tree

This project connects and extends my architectural and artistic works. The works were commissioned by RSL Maroochydore as an extension to the Cotton Tree Cenotaph at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast of Australia for the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice of WW1.

The works were completed and commissioned just one day prior to the Remembrance Day dawn service 11 November 2018.

This is the first artificially illuminated exterior Eternal Flame in Australia. The brief and subsequent design developed with an emphasis on the creation of a sacred space for the place on the eastern arm of the Cenotaph’s two axes. The space is created by a low and gently curving wall of precast concrete panels clad in black granite. The wall protects the flame plinth also of precast concrete. The project team considered a number of options before deciding to deliver a ‘green’ alternative to the traditional gas flames. The designs flame element has been cast in solid bronze and is protected from direct sunlight by four bronze shields. Each shield represents a division of the Australian armed forces: Navy, Army, Air Force and Merchant Navy - which collectively protect the flame. The flame is animated from below using a system of computer controlled lighting which adjusts from daylight to night.

The mural wall depicts other ‘natural monuments’ of the Sunshine Coast - from the left, Mount Coolum (and breaching Humpback Whale), Mudjimba or ‘Old Woman’ Island, The Pandanus trees of Alexandra Headlands and on the right, the view to the Glasshouse Mountains from Mary Cairn Cross on the ranges just behind our beautiful beaches. These have been sandblasted onto polished slabs of black granite.

The photographs are my own with the exception of the Whale (acknowledgements and thanks to Sunreef Mooloolaba). The photographs were manipulated into vector art for application of stencils for sandblasting.

The design delivers on our intention to create a local and significant connection for our community’s remembrance of all past conflicts and in particular of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, or healthy minds and bodies over the short span of Australia’s modern history.

One section right hand portion of the wall has been inscribed with 2 verses of the Ode for the Fallen written by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) , one of which reads:

‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them.”

Above these words is a bronze triangle which depicts the texture of a wall, our world, cracked and broken by conflict. From this crack a poppy flower emerges, in memory of the fallen and with seed pods as symbol of both hope and possibility for our collective future.

The memorial was dedicated on Saturday 10 November 2018 and on Sunday, 11 November 2018 our community gathered here to remember the fallen, and to reflect upon the significance of the 100th Anniversary of the silence of the guns of the Great War.

‘Lest we forget’.

For more information on the design, fabrication and sculpting of the bronze components, click here:

My heartfelt appreciation and thanks to:

Mick Liddelow & Ian Smylie (President and Board Member, RSL Maroochydore)

Phillip Piperides, Perides Art Foundry (Ceramic shell bronze casting, finishing, assembly and patination)

Jesse Muntz, Danny Long and Simone Toce (Crossley Architects crew)

James Graham (Luxplot Lighting Design)

MMS Memorials (Sandblasting)

Sunreef Mooloolaba (Whale Breaching photograph)

Park Forge Group (Construction)

Janice Pryde (Studio assistance, support and love)