Freetown’s First World War memorial now names the men it once left out. Lagos-based Oshinówò Studio has added a freetown memorial glass extension to the monument that Sir Edwin Lutyens designed, and the new section carries the names of Sierra Leone Carrier Corps members.
The original memorial was unveiled on 11 March 1931, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). It stands in a courtyard overlooked by government buildings, close to the Ministry of Finance.
Who the carriers were
The Sierra Leone Carrier Corps was one of the largest West African labour units the British Empire raised in the First World War, the CWGC says. Its members carried food, ammunition, water and medical supplies over long distances. They worked in terrain with few railways and no all-weather roads.
The CWGC reports that more than 10,000 men were recruited for the British war effort in Africa. Over 900 of the corps did not return home. Most of them died of disease during the East Africa campaign.
The original panels named African soldiers from other units. Carriers appeared only as a number. After the Second World War, changes to add later casualties removed all reference to the corps from the monument, leaving their names only in the memorial register, according to the CWGC.
Building the freetown memorial glass extension on an old structure
The freetown memorial glass extension drew on a team from Nigeria, the Netherlands, Spain, Sierra Leone and the UK. Engineers, glass designers, laser consultants and construction partners all worked on the scheme. Stonemasons and bronze specialists restored the existing memorial.
The hardest problem was structural. The Lutyens monument was never designed to carry extra weight, which is common in older memorial architecture. Oshinówò’s team developed a reinforcement strategy, which she calls a root canal, to add the new structure without damaging the old masonry.
Fitting new work onto an old masonry frame is a delicate job, and Vienna offers a close parallel. Vienna’s 1826 synagogue renovation preserving history shows how careful restoration keeps old walls working for modern use.
An epitaph by the poets Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Julianknxx appears on the pavilion. It is written in Krio and English, and reads: “From today you will be carried, you are borne, now and ever.”
Glass, light and a beam over the city
Oshinówò’s design for the freetown memorial glass extension places four glass fins above the existing stone plinth. Each fin is etched with the names of the fallen carriers. The CWGC says the new names were uncovered by its Non-Commemorations Programme team and external partners. The CWGC gives a figure of over 940, and the studio’s own text puts it above 900.
The figures for height also differ. The studio gives the structure a height of 8.4 metres and says the four fins weigh 4,000 kg in total. The 4,000 kg figure comes from the studio alone.
A beam of light runs through the centre of the freetown memorial glass extension. The studio says it will be lit on significant days throughout the year. The studio puts the beam’s visible range at 5 km across Freetown.
Oshinówò describes light as a natural medium for the project. The site sits in a controlled-access area, and she wanted the memorial to reach beyond it. “We wanted to create a memorial that could transcend the limitations of its physical location,” she says in the studio’s account.
Glass and light do much of the work in this memorial, and they play a similar role in a very different setting. Montreal’s glass-brick home balancing privacy and openness shows how translucent walls can control what is seen and what is shared.
Naming the dead
Claire Horton CBE, director general of the CWGC, describes the work as a correction. “It is about righting a historic wrong and renewing a promise we made a century ago,” she says. She adds that the commission wants everyone who died for the Commonwealth to be commemorated equally.
The CWGC says it wanted the freetown memorial glass extension to honour the Sierra Leone Carrier Corps by name for the first time. She also wanted the project to explain the global scale of the World Wars to visitors in Sierra Leone and abroad.
The studio publishes its portfolio at oshinowostudio.com. Its Freetown memorial shows how a century-old monument can add the names it once excluded. Nearly 100 years after the first unveiling, the men who carried the war’s supplies can be read in Freetown.
Source: wallpaper.com
Frequently asked questions
When was Freetown’s First World War memorial originally unveiled?
Freetown’s First World War memorial was unveiled on 11 March 1931, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The monument was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
What did the Sierra Leone Carrier Corps do in the First World War?
The Sierra Leone Carrier Corps carried food, ammunition, water and medical supplies over long distances during the First World War. They worked in terrain with few railways and no all-weather roads.
Why was it difficult to add a glass extension to the Freetown memorial?
The Lutyens monument was never designed to carry extra weight, which made adding the new structure a structural challenge. Oshinówò’s team developed a reinforcement strategy to add the new structure without damaging the old masonry.
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