Walter Paz - the stonemason behind Australia's P.o.W Memorial
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05 Feb 2004
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Presenter: Dominic Brine
Thursday, 5 February 2004
Hear what was involved in creating the monument to Australia's prisoners of war.
It was early 2003 when Walter Paz received the call offering him the job of finding the raw materials for the Australian P.o.W Memorial to be built in Ballarat.
"We predominantly specialise in insulation of stonework... in Ballarat we installed bluestone walls at the
Gallery," says Walter, but he came to relish the opportunity to work alongside Ballarat sculptor Peter Bliazzard, charged with designing the memorial.
"He's a very special man, I think. He's very passionate about this particular memorial, I tell you," says Walter. And is the relationship between stonemason and artist somewhat similar to that of engineer and architect - one has the vision and the other has to find a way to make it stand up? "Absolutely... [Peter] is a very intense person, and a very good contact in there to push the thing forward."
The centrepiece of the memorial is a series giant obelisks, drawn from a quarry in Port Fairy using a combination of blasting and cutting in conjunction with a forklift - it was to prove the beginning of the most complex operation in the memorial's construction.
"We went through hundreds of different stones to get to the ones that were suitable, due to the sheer size required. It was done with very heavy equipment, but I think the most difficult part was to install them. Because they are so large and so fragile, putting them in position was incredibly difficult."
Fragility isn't the first word that comes to mind when standing in front of a ten tonne piece of granite...
"You can't damage them whatsoever - they're very strong, but damage them just a little bit and it changes Peter's design, so we had to be very very careful how we placed them."
The other dominant feature of the memorial is the 130m long wall recording each of the more than 34,000 names of Australians taken prisoner in wars through the ages.
"That's Imperial Black, or Adelaide Black granite, 40 millimetres thick. The extensive carving of all the letters was a major job, done by a person in Ballarat - and once again the difficult part was the insulation, as every piece, once inscribed, was worth gold - we couldn't afford any scratches, any types of blemishes," he says.
The process of inscribing each name on the granite has taken more than 8 months, utilising a fusion of ancient stone carving skills and modern day computer technology.
"It's been an honour for us - we've been in business for 19 years and this is the most important job we've ever done. We're really proud to have been involved in this, and it's going to be really hard to surpass. I'll be gladly looking at it when I'm a great-grandad, somehow, if I'm still around."
Thursday, 5 February 2004
Hear what was involved in creating the monument to Australia's prisoners of war.
It was early 2003 when Walter Paz received the call offering him the job of finding the raw materials for the Australian P.o.W Memorial to be built in Ballarat.
"We predominantly specialise in insulation of stonework... in Ballarat we installed bluestone walls at the
Gallery," says Walter, but he came to relish the opportunity to work alongside Ballarat sculptor Peter Bliazzard, charged with designing the memorial.
"He's a very special man, I think. He's very passionate about this particular memorial, I tell you," says Walter. And is the relationship between stonemason and artist somewhat similar to that of engineer and architect - one has the vision and the other has to find a way to make it stand up? "Absolutely... [Peter] is a very intense person, and a very good contact in there to push the thing forward."
The centrepiece of the memorial is a series giant obelisks, drawn from a quarry in Port Fairy using a combination of blasting and cutting in conjunction with a forklift - it was to prove the beginning of the most complex operation in the memorial's construction.
"We went through hundreds of different stones to get to the ones that were suitable, due to the sheer size required. It was done with very heavy equipment, but I think the most difficult part was to install them. Because they are so large and so fragile, putting them in position was incredibly difficult."
Fragility isn't the first word that comes to mind when standing in front of a ten tonne piece of granite...
"You can't damage them whatsoever - they're very strong, but damage them just a little bit and it changes Peter's design, so we had to be very very careful how we placed them."
The other dominant feature of the memorial is the 130m long wall recording each of the more than 34,000 names of Australians taken prisoner in wars through the ages.
"That's Imperial Black, or Adelaide Black granite, 40 millimetres thick. The extensive carving of all the letters was a major job, done by a person in Ballarat - and once again the difficult part was the insulation, as every piece, once inscribed, was worth gold - we couldn't afford any scratches, any types of blemishes," he says.
The process of inscribing each name on the granite has taken more than 8 months, utilising a fusion of ancient stone carving skills and modern day computer technology.
"It's been an honour for us - we've been in business for 19 years and this is the most important job we've ever done. We're really proud to have been involved in this, and it's going to be really hard to surpass. I'll be gladly looking at it when I'm a great-grandad, somehow, if I'm still around."
