The Dome of Souls

• This is the centerpiece and inspirational heart of the entire complex. It consists of seven pillars, testifying to the National significance and intention of this Memorial, while expressing the traditional symbol of the pillar as world axis, ' joining heaven and earth. The pillar denotes wisdom, power, goodness, strength, the tree of life and, surmounted by a crown, spiritual ascent.

• This forms a Dome composed of 645 Stainless Steel Gulls, representing those lost. The concept was inspired by the incident which took place, when a flock of silver Gulls swooped over the assembled crowd, during the Memorial Site Dedication Ceremony, 19th November 1998, while the Last Post rang out in the evening air, at sunset, the last recorded moment in time when HMAS Sydney was seen. Traditionally, the seagull personified the souls of lost sailors and in this context these elemental symbols form a link with the men of HMAS Sydney II, as spirits flying free between water and sky. The canopy thus formed, becomes an open filigree stainless steel structure, redolent of the sound of sea and wind creating a sense of disembodiment and peace, as a graceful distillation of the overall concept.

Joan Walsh Smith
Charles Smith