Bomber Command Memorial London W1
Architect/Designer:
Lima O’Connor Architects
Client:
RAF Benevolent Fund
Main Contractor:
S McConnell and Sons
Completion Date:
2012
Portland Stone:
Jordans Basebed & Jordans Whitbed
Scope of Project:
War Memorial
The new monument based in London’s Green Park will commemorate the 55,573 crew members of the RAF’s Bomber Command who were killed between 1939 and 1945.
The memorial, which was completed in 2012 ahead of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, was designed by Architect Liam O’Connor, who is best known for the Armed Forces Memorial in Staffordshire.
The sculpture is set on a 1.5m black basalt plinth. The height of the plinth and the scale of the sculpture as a whole means that visitors will always see the profile of the figure against the sky above them, day and night – thus rendering that section of the sky powerfully symbolic for the memorial.
This project involved quarrying and mining some of the largest stones ever extracted from Portland – the memorial incorporates 77m³ of Jordan’s Whitbed, used for plint courses, curved benches and the stonework above the architrave blausters and copings, and 288m³ of Jordan’s Basebed in the two main sections of the structure and colonnades.
