Author: Gavin Stamp Publisher: Profile Books ISBN: 1847650600 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 221
Book Description
Edwin Lutyens' Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval in Northern France, visited annually by tens of thousands of tourists, is arguably the finest structure erected by any British architect in the twentieth century. It is the principal, tangible expression of the defining event in Britain's experience and memory of the Great War, the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, and it bears the names of 73,000 soldiers whose bodies were never found at the end of that bloody and futile campaign. This brilliant study by an acclaimed architectural historian tells the origin of the memorial in the context of commemorating the war dead; it considers the giant classical brick arch in architectural terms, and also explores its wider historical significance and its resonances today. So much of the meaning of the twentieth century is concentrated here; the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing casts a shadow into the future, a shadow which extends beyond the dead of the Holocaust, to the Gulag, to the 'disappeared' of South America and of Tianenmen. Reissued in a beautiful and striking new edition for the centenary of the Somme.
Author: Geoff Dyer Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307743233 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 178
Book Description
The Missing of the Somme is part travelogue, part meditation on remembrance—and completely, unabashedly, unlike any other book about the First World War. Through visits to battlefields and memorials, Geoff Dyer examines the way that photographs and film, poetry and prose determined—sometimes in advance of the events described—the way we would think about and remember the war. With his characteristic originality and insight, Dyer untangles and reconstructs the network of myth and memory that illuminates our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.
Author: Geoff Dyer Publisher: Canongate Books ISBN: 0857863371 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 229
Book Description
The Missing of the Somme has become a classic meditation upon war and remembrance. It weaves a network of myth and memory, photos and films, poetry and sculptures, graveyards and ceremonies that illuminate our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.
Author: Ken Linge Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1473870763 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 492
Book Description
Stories offering insight into the lives of 200 of the 72,000 men who went missing in action at the Battle of the Somme in France during WWI. The Thiepval Memorial commemorates over 72,000 men who have no known grave; all went missing in the Somme sector during the three years of conflict that finally ended on 20 March 1918. The book is not a military history of the Battle of the Somme, it is about personal remembrance, and features over 200 fascinating stories of the men who fought and died and whose final resting places have not been identified. Countries within the UK are all well represented, as are the men whose roots were in the far-flung reaches of the Empire and even foreigners. The stories that lie behind each of the names carved into the memorials panels illustrate the various backgrounds and differing lives of these men. The diverse social mix of the men young and old, gentry to laborers, actors, artists, clergy, poets, sportsmen, writers, and more is something that stands out in the book. Despite their social differences, what is most apparent is the wide impact of the loss for over fifty widows, around 100 children left fatherless and over thirty families mourning more than one son. Ranks from private to lieutenant colonel are expertly covered, as well as all seven winners of the Victoria Cross. These captivating stories stand as remembrance for each man and to all the others on the memorial. They are meticulously organized so the book can be of use to visitors as they walk around the memorial; as a name is viewed, the story behind that name can be read. Praise for Missing but Not Forgotten “This book specifically explores what is known about the lives and service of 200 of those men. The men selected aptly represent the wide variety of those who fought in the epic conflict, from laborers to gentry, from humble Tommies to VC recipients. Photographs, diary entries and other accounts bring at least a few of the sobering ranks of names to life.” —Your Family History
Author: Martin Middlebrook Publisher: Casemate Publishers ISBN: 1783460490 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 623
Book Description
While best known as being the scene of the most terrible carnage in the WW1 the French department of the Somme has seen many other battles from Roman times to 1944. William the Conqueror launched his invasion from there; the French and English fought at Crecy in 1346; Henry Vs army marched through on their way to Agincourt in 1415; the Prussians came in 1870.The Great War saw three great battles and approximately half of the 400,000 who died on the Somme were British a terrible harvest, marked by 242 British cemeteries and over 50,000 lie in unmarked graves. These statistics explain in part why the area is visited year-on-year by ever increasing numbers of British and Commonwealth citizens. This evocative book written by the authors of the iconic First Day on the Somme is a thorough guide to the cemeteries, memorials and battlefields of the area, with the emphasis on the fighting of 1916 and 1918, with fascinating descriptions and anecdotes.
Author: Maya Lin Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1501146564 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
Renowned artist and architect Maya Lin's visual and verbal sketchbook—a unique view into her artwork and philosophy. Walking through this parklike area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth -- a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward, and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls of this memorial, we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial's walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole.... So begins the competition entry submitted in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. -- subsequently called "as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world." Its creator, Maya Lin, has been nothing less than world famous ever since. From the explicitly political to the un-ashamedly literary to the completely abstract, her simple and powerful sculpture -- the Rockefeller Foundation sculpture, the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial, the Yale Women's Table, Wave Field -- her architecture, including The Museum for African Art and the Norton residence, and her protean design talents have defined her as one of the most gifted creative geniuses of the age. Boundaries is her first book: an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. Like her environmental sculptures, it is a site, but one which exists at a remove so that it may comment on the personal and artistic elements that make up those works. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original designs are held together by a deeply personal text. Boundaries is a powerful literary and visual statement by "a leading public artist" (Holland Carter). It is itself a unique work of art.
Author: Timothy John Skelton Publisher: Frances Lincoln Limited ISBN: 9780711228788 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Sir Edwin Lutyens is celebrated for his large houses for wealthy clients, yet much of his work designed in connection with World War I remains unknown. As Chief Architect for the Imperial War Graves Commission, Lutyens’ work — cemeteries, war memorials, and individual graves and monuments — set the standard for the much-admired British and Commonwealth war cemeteries. In addition to the famed Cenotaph in Whitehall and the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval, Lutyens created another 55 memorials. This detailed guide covers them all, including the beautiful memorial at Spalding that has never appeared in any book on Lutyen’s work and the cemeteries at Monchy and Croisilles in France that barely rate a mention in battlefield guides, let alone in books about architecture. Tim Skelton and Gerald Gliddon of the Lutyens Trust describe these moving works and the stories behind them, while 375 color photographs capture their somber beauty.
Author: Paul Coffey Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN: 9781517066772 Category : Languages : en Pages : 406
Book Description
'He looked up at the sky, crystal blue and cloudless ... he closed his eyes, put the whistle to his lips and blew.' The first of July 1916 and in the French countryside tens of thousands of doomed British soldiers are being killed and wounded as the bloody Battle of the Somme begins. Captain Edward Harris, vainly encouraging his men over the top and headlong into the murderous German machine guns, is badly wounded. Crawling to a shell hole for cover, he lies helpless as the carnage continues around him. October 2015 and Tom Harris has no interest in the First World War. For him it's a conflict from another age. But during a visit to the battlefields he becomes fascinated by a headstone in a British war cemetery showing his namesake. Desperate to learn more Tom begins to delve into the past where he discovers ordinary men consumed by extraordinary times. And in doing so he unearths a remarkable and moving story of loss, despair, hope and redemption.
Author: Jeroen Geurst Publisher: 010 Publishers ISBN: 9064507155 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 476
Book Description
The British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) designed 140 cemeteries in the countryside of Flanders and Northern France for soldiers killed in the First World War. The cemeteries can be regarded as an imprint, as it were, of the former battlefront on the map of Europe. All are designed to principles established beforehand, including uniform gravestones, a large Stone of Remembrance and a large cross. Yet the difference in size, alignment and provenance make them all unique variations on the themes in question. The most memorable aspects are their meticulously chosen position in the landscape, the varied selection of trees and other greenery and the architecture of the entrance and shelter buildings. This illustrated book charts the history of the designs and exposes the underlying principle of order and variation in the architecture in an exhaustive landscape-architectural analysis. All 140 cemeteries are fully documented with references to the places where they are to be found.
Author: Peter Stanford Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1441179771 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
Looks at graveyards and burial practices and the ways that they can help us understand how people have understood and dealt with death.
Author: Gavin Stamp
Author: Geoff Dyer
Author: Geoff Dyer
Author: Ken Linge
Author: Martin Middlebrook
Author: Maya Lin
Author: Timothy John Skelton
Author: Paul Coffey
Author: Jeroen Geurst
Author: Peter Stanford