On the borderline between the horizon of the fields and the protective cover of the wood surrounding the memorial, the visitors center is a discrete building, respectful of the site. A shed of dark metal, glass and brick. Symbolically, it penetrates in the soil and is accessible by a maze of trenches. It becomes the entrance to the memorial for the 300 000 annual visitors.

The landscape as a memory
The approach towards the Thiepval memorial presents a dramatic character.
Collective history is readable/printed at the geographic scale. It reveals itself at the view of the wide undulating plains punctuated by the different combatants cemeteries and underlined by long rows of trees, like fragile and lonely battle lines; at the fastly changing aspect of the omnipresent skies of the Somme; at the weight of this land so often plowed.

Disappearance as an architectural motto
If the memorial build by Sir E. Luytens imposes itself by its solid and vertical presence, amid its green shrine, the visitor center fades to disappearance by its immateriality and horizontal lines.

above the fields floats A simple slab created by the visitors center’s light roof, that underlines the tree’s cover and reveals the very beautiful light filtering through the grove

Automobile flows are deviated on a new way passing in front of the visitors center, but hidden by a large earthwork that models all
of the site to conceal the presence of the parking -even touring bus are not seen from the roads leading tho the memorial.

The visitor leaves his vehicle, and takes a narrow and sloped way that plunges in the ground, making him experience the presence of the trenches.

A large retaining wall built out of brick ( an evident material, both from a geographical and an historical point of view) crosses this luminous hall and accompanies the visitor. Inviting him to continue his path towards the memorial.

The covered and protected spaces of the visitors center become then a stage, a halt in a walk. Contrast between the aerial structure of metal and glass and brickworks confer to the interior spaces an elegant and cozy feeling.

It offers at all the visitors of the « circuit du souvenir » battlefields services (help desk, shop, snacks, toilets) and an exhibition centered on Thiepval’s meaning in the history of WW1 and it’s commemoration.