1 Forgetting, sacrifice and trauma in the Western Australian State War Memorial. Biography John Richard Stephens John is a teacher and researcher in the Department of Architecture and Interior Architecture at Curtin University in Western Australia. He is an active member of the Australia Asia Pacific Institute and the Australia at War and Peace Group at Curtin University His research focuses on war memory, memorialisation, the architecture of commemoration and cultural heritage. Contact details: Department of Architecture and Interior Architecture School of Built Environment Faculty of Humanities Curtin University PO Box U1987 Perth Western Australia 6845 +61 08 9266 3842 +61 08 9266 2177
[email protected] 2 Forgetting, sacrifice and trauma in the Western Australian State War Memorial John Stephens Curtin University Built in 1929, the Western Australian State War Memorial was not the grand structure that many wanted and its construction was hindered by the resounding failure of two appeals for funds from an apparently apathetic public. State government and city authorities refused to assist unless the memorial was utilitarian, a stance deeply opposed by a State War Memorial Committee committed to a monument and shrine. However, the familiar debate about utility versus monument in war commemoration not only underlined tensions about the visible public recognition due to returned soldiers and the way that the fallen should be honoured, it coalesced around the problem of how the concepts of sacrifice and trauma generated by the First World War might be memorialised and represented. This article pursues the argument that sacrifice and trauma are crucial to understand why the Committee rejected a utilitarian memorial and persisted with their monument scheme.