14 Sep 2009 - Cambridge American Cemetery

Following an invited competition, in 2010 we were appointed by the American Battle Monuments Commission to design a new Visitor Centre at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Madingley.

The Cemetery was formally dedicated in January 1956, following the gift of the land by the University of Cambridge, and over 3,800 US military personnel are buried here.  The site is the only American Second World War cemetery in Britain.  The historic layout is by Boston architects Perry Shaw & Hepburn and landscape architects, the Olmstead Brothers.

The Visitor Centre will house a permanent interactive exhibit covering the history of the North Atlantic campaign and strategic air operations in northwest Europe during World War II.   The building will be set within the woodland landscape to the southwest corner of the site, close, but separated from the historic section of the Cemetery by a pedestrian boardwalk approach through woodland.

The project also creates a new entrance court to the Cemetery, centred between the existing visitor building and a new proposed facilities building.  The twin gatehouses will reinforce the main Cemetery entrance from the Madingley Road.

As the site is designated by English Heritage as a Grade 1 park and garden, a high degree of landscape co-ordination has taken place in developing the proposals.  Landscape architects Robert Myers Associates and arboriculturalist David Brown Landscape Design have both worked closely with BB+C in developing the proposals now approved by English Heritage, the American Commission of Fine Arts and local planning authority, South Cambridgeshire District Council.

Construction work is due to commence on site in May 2012, and the new Visitor Centre will open to the public the autumn of 2013.