Brantford's Cenotaph

Here are some pictures of the cenotaph here in Brantford Ont. Sorry about the quality of pics, but I couldn't see the screen on my phone all that good because of the sun.

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Very nice monument, looks fairly new.

Very nice monument. I hope it is shown more respect than some of the others lately. A graffiti artist would have field day with those large flat surfaces.

The Brantford War Memorial dates from 1933 and was designed by Walter S. Allward, the same artist who designed the Vimy Memorial. Unfortunately it was permanently altered, and from my perspective not for the better, with the addition of the WWII figures in I believe the 1990s. Brantford also has a lovely Bell Telephone Memorial which commemorates the invention of the telephone in Brantford, was also designed by Allward and was unveiled in 1917. Thankfully this one has not been altered.

ED

Ed
Thanks for the info. I moved to Brantford a few years ago, so I don't know what it looked like before the SWW figures were added, but I like it. There is also a monument for the people that served in the Boer War, I will try and get a few pictures when I go past there this week. And I will have to find the Bell Telephone Memorial, I don't remember seeing it.
Len

I can understand the need by a community to 'update' a war memorial as a lot had happened since many of them were erected following the Great War. This enthusiasm should also be tempered with some common sense and an overall view of maintaining the original look and feel of the memorial. In this case to go and tamper with an Allward memorial is very much like modifying a famous painting. There are several design and balance elements that an artist takes into consideration when designing a memorial; and in this case to go and stick some mediocre statues onto the most prominent part of the work was in my opinion, a very ill-conceived choice. Without even talking about 'balance', the prominence of the statues tells me that Canada's WWII contribution is now more important then the other eras.

Go look at the Bell Memorial, it is just down the road. Some of the design elements and imagery of this memorial were reflected at Vimy.

I see your point Ed, now that I know who designed the cenotaph. It seems that we have this need to change things that don't need to be changed at all. I walked past it again last week and thought about it, and I could see the similarities between this one and the Vimy Ridge Memorial, especially, from the side, which I didn't get a picture. You can just see it, on the right hand side of this picture of the Brantford armouries.  I also took some pictures of 3 other memorials, all across the street from this one, that I will post in a different thread.
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