Queen Elizabeth memorial to include glass bridge and gardens

The winning design for the national memorial for Queen Elizabeth II will feature a bridge with a balustrade made of glass, new gates and commemorative gardens.

The design will also feature her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, alongside a traditional, large statue of the late Queen overlooking the Mall.

Lord Norman Foster’s design team has been announced as the winner of the competition for a memorial to honour Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, to be built in St James’s Park in central London.

The translucent bridge is inspired by the shape of the late Queen’s wedding tiara.

Newly-laid gardens in St James’s Park will commemorate the Commonwealth and the communities of the United Kingdom.

“We respect the biodiversity and nature of that part of the park, which is alive with wildlife,” Lord Foster told the BBC.

The chosen design is multi-faceted, with a separate statue of the Queen and Prince Philip, gardens and a Prince Philip Gate, along with a main monument to the late Queen.

Lord Foster said of Prince Philip’s inclusion: “We showed them together and, in a way, there was this inseparable quality which we sought to convey.”

The design, chosen from a shortlist of five concepts, is a balance of “traditional elements and modern elements, informal and formal”, says Lord Robert Janvrin, chair of the memorial committee and the late Queen’s former private secretary.

Lord Janvrin wants the memorial to help people “reflect on an extraordinary life, someone who for a very long reign was part of the way that this nation looked at itself, the way that we changed and evolved”.

He says the memorial should evoke a “sense of her life of service”.

He told the BBC he thought she would have been pleased with the memorial being placed in St James’s Park, visible from Buckingham Palace.

“I think the location is something which would have appealed to her. You can see the bridge from the room where she often sat for paintings,” he said.

Lord Janvrin thought she would have approved of the proposed new bridge across the pond, with a reinforced glass balustrade, echoing the tiara worn on her wedding day in 1947.

Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage lasted 73 years, until his death in 2021. The late Queen spoke of how much she missed her “beloved” husband and this memorial design brings them together, with figures of the couple and a Prince Philip gate.

There is no date yet set for the monument to be completed. And the final cost has still be decided, with a budget previously said to be between £23m and £46m.

The design will see the re-landscaping of a section of St James’s Park, with a bridge, two new gates, and two gardens, as well as statues of the Queen and the Queen with Prince Philip.

Lord Foster said it was an “honour and a privilege” for his team to carry out this project, which “stretched the boundaries of art and technology”.

The leading architect’s previous work has included the Gherkin office tower and the Great Court of the British Museum in London, and the Reichstag dome in Berlin.

He said the memorial was a creative attempt to convey the “values she represented” to the “many people who are passing through the park”.

The different layers of the memorial would suggest the “richness, the complexity and the many different dimensions” of the late Queen’s reign, he said

And the bridge would have a “jewel-like” quality, he said.

“The bridge is lightweight. It can be floated along the Thames, it can come in overnight. The old bridge can be taken away. It’s translucent, a very light touch in the landscape.” Lord Foster said.

The final look of the statues will depend on the sculptor, who has yet to be appointed. But the illustrations of the main monument so far have shown a conventional image of the late Queen on horseback.

She was “so synonymous” with horse riding, said Lord Foster.

Baroness Amos, who was on the committee that chose the winner, said the “ambitious design will create a beautiful space for people to come together”.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, said it was a “beautiful memorial” to the late Queen’s “life and legacy of public service” which would provide a “space to reflect on and celebrate our longest-reigning monarch for centuries to come”.