Design
The memorial is located on a central road of the city directly opposite to the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium (Bangalore) and close to the Raj Bhavan. It is conceived as a place of quiet remembrance and homage. It was one of the first projects of this nature undertaken by the State Government, and aims at recognising the servicemen of the country. The project was designed to be a primordial, ceremonial path in the forest as an expression of honour to the martyr's and their memory. It has different areas all of which are linked by the path to complete the larger journey/narrative of the memorial.
The ceremonial path of commemoration begins adjacent to a series of plaques with the physical marking of 21,763 martyr's names and proceeds into an underground memorial hall that houses the information of the missions undertaken by the martyr’s and ends at a tall national flagpole beside the Veeragallu (a symbolic stone that marks the heroic death of a warrior in battle in Karnataka), and leads downwards to a memorial hall/museum. With the intent of preserving the nature at the site, the built form of the memorial hall was designed to disappear into the ground like a bunker and passes below the roots of the trees at the site, of which there are 320 remaining out of an original 324 (4 Eucalyptus trees were removed to accommodate the structure).
The Entrance to the memorial hall begins with an open court with amphitheatre-like steps, the first of 5 courts that serve to provide ventilation and daylight into the underground structure. In addition to these open courts, triangular skylights animate the space throughout the day. The materiality of this space makes allusions to a concrete bunker with its raw form finished concrete. The concrete and nature of this material along with its casting process is still as manual as it was in 1947 and this lies underneath in the memorial hall in its raw cast finish. The shadows of the trees above in the precinct and insulation from the soil above the hall also provide the hall with its own environment detached from the world above ground. A reflective space that views the ground above and trees from the viewpoint of being well below the roots of the trees. The hall is a simple structure like a box that is punctuated by the underground / sunken courtyards and structured through its more than 100 meters length by natural light. [4]
Within the memorial hall, various weapon systems, charts, etc. are present. Aircraft are suspended from the ceiling and statues of various well known figures of the Armed Forces are displayed.
One of the other major parts of the memorial, the Veeragallu, was designed to reflect the sacrifice of the soldiers remembered here. 'From the wilderness, now unearthed and to become the sacrificial monolith, just like the lives lost for the country'. Shaping and carrying its body to its final installation at the Veerabhumi (place of the brave martyr’s) was an engineering feat. The following were the broad stages of the process which were photographically documented:
- The quarry at Koyira
- Shaping the Veeragallu at the quarry
- Lifting the jacks
- Moving out of the quarry
- Travelling to the Veerabhumi
- Placing the Veeragallu
- Installed for the last final surface preparation
Adjacent to the Veeragallu is the 65 meter (213 feet) flagpole which hosts the countries largest national flag at 48 x 78 feet. [4]
Overground, the memorial displays various armoured vehicles, aircraft, missile systems and scale models within exhibit buildings.
