Location: Çanakkale, Turkey.

Architect: TEGET + Studio Evren Başbuğ.

The Gallipoli Memorial Gardens is an architectural concept proposed for a national ideas competition in 2017 for the design of 15 war cemeteries on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The peninsula is a protected natural reserve and national park dedicated to world peace, hosting countless battlefield sites, cemeteries, and monuments dedicated to the lost souls of the Gallipoli Campaign. The visitor experience of these memorials varies, with some traditional monuments building barriers between the remembered ones and the visitor, while others allow for a more personalized experience. However, the physical environment of parking lots, souvenir shops, and restrooms can ruin the purity of the experience of contemplation. The Memorial Gardens are abstract volumes in a natural setting, with strict geometry and peripheric walls enclosing each piece of land. The height of the walls is anchored at a standard height according to the local topography, defining the linear edge of the horizon which separates the natural landscape outside with the curated landscape inside. The visitor reaches the gardens through a mediated progressive route which gradually shifts the experienced timescape from standard daily life to that of nature. Once the visitor enters a garden, time stops, and the memorial gardens suddenly appear in the silent and deserted landscapes of the peninsula. The mathematical design strategy is the same for all 15 sites, but the architectural result changes according to the size of the graveyard and the local topography, thus creating multiple variations on a common theme. The design strategy consists of natural and temporal inputs, and it is anticipated that in an undefined timeframe, the rubble piled up outside the walls will be taken over by nature, making these artifacts and their designers somehow transparent and invisible.

Photo credit: TEGET / Studio, Evren Başbuğ Architects.