War Correspondents Memorial

The War Correspondents Memorial honours the journalists, photographers, film and sound crews, writers and artists who have travelled to war zones to record the horrors of battle and the Australian experience of war. It was created by architects Johnson Pilton Walker (JPW). The key element to JPW’s design is a large and highly polished granite oculus that evokes a camera lens or a human eye, and is suggestive of the act of observing or bearing witness to an event. The oculus is 2.4 metres in diameter, with a single line of commemorative text engraved around the circumference, and is set within a landscaped setting, including pavers. The curved granite form is shaped to collect and reflect the distant images of the Hall of Memory dome, individual memorials, as well as the surrounding trees and sky. A low semi-circular retaining wall differentiates the site from the surrounding sloping grounds and provides seating. A series of grass mounds suggesting ripples radiate out from the paved space and symbolically evoke the transmission of ideas, or sound waves, and helps mark out the memorial to passing visitors.

The following words are inscribed on the oculus:
AMID DANGERS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WAR CORRESPONDENTS REPORT WHAT THEY SEE AND HEAR. THOSE WORDS AND IMAGES LIVE BEYOND THE MOMENT AND BECOME PART OF THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA.