Narrator: Welcome to “Concrete and Light,” a podcast from the Canadian War Museum. I’m Neil Morrison. In this episode, we’re going to tour the Museum itself.

This remarkable building rose out of the craggy fields of LeBreton Flats in Ottawa. The land is traditional Algonquin territory and was once home to a vital trading post and meeting place for Indigenous peoples in the area.

In the 19th century, European immigrants established the LeBreton Flats as a lumber-industry hub. The area flourished as a working-class neighborhood, with homes, shops, schools, and a railway. A devastating fire in 1900 began its decline, with industrial contamination further degrading the area. By the 1960s, the federal government expropriated and demolished everything. The promise of urban renewal never materialized. 

Left abandoned, long grass grew over the old rubble. But it was that rugged, barren landscape that inspired architect Raymond Moriyama’s vision for what was next: the construction of the new Canadian War Museum. 

With its roof covered in local grasses, the Museum appears as if it emerges organically from the ground. Moriyama wanted its dramatic, low-slung shape to reflect the trauma of war inflicted upon land and people. The structure blends in with its surroundings, symbolizing the possibility of regeneration after difficult times. And the way its fin rises up and points towards Parliament Hill reminds us that the seat of government is where crucial decisions about war and peace are made. 

Moriyama also brought a personal vision to this project. He and his family were sent to an internment camp in the interior of British Columbia, where Japanese Canadians were held during the Second World War. He was only 12, but his memories of living through wartime informed parts of the Museum’s design. 
In the Lobby, and in Memorial Hall — and along the passageways leading to the galleries — angled concrete and steel are meant to feel destabilizing and unsettling. But strategically placed light represents hope amid suffering.

The whistling sound in the Moriyama Regeneration Hall was recorded during its construction. While it evokes the comfort of his boyhood treehouse in the internment camp, it also provides a haunting soundtrack for one of the most poignant rooms in the Museum.

Wel tour this structure through the voices of those who helped create it.

Emmanuelle van Rutten: I think it’s one thing to design something; it’s another thing to see the impact — the tangible impact — it has on others. 

Narrator: And, from its guides, we’ll hear about visitors who sometimes come here to process profound grief.

Rob: And she teared up a bit. And I just was present for her. She just had a moment, and I just happened to be here, and she was here. 

Narrator: Each one has played a part in the War Museum’s mission over the past two decades: to be a space designed to challenge the conscience, and a source of healing and regeneration. 

[Sound of wind.]

Emmanuelle: Yeah, so here we are in front of LeBreton Flats. You know, when we started the project, it was a field. It used to be the industrial heart of Ottawa. And so, the Museum was actually the first building to be built on the site. One of the things that actually inspired us was the grass that was growing on the field. And it seemed to fit with a lot of the themes that we were exploring about nature, healing, about land and how you sit a building on land, on site. And that was really quite important as part of the design process, as a form of inspiration.

My name is Emmanuelle van Rutten. I’m a partner at Moriyama Teshima Architects. The building was designed by Raymond Moriyama with Moriyama Teshima Architects and grc architects; it was a joint venture at the time. I was a young architect involved in the design and documentation, and then construction process, in my mid-twenties. 

It was obviously an important project for me, being young in my career. It was a tremendous, intense moment. The building was being built in a fast-track process, so it had to be done very quickly to meet the opening in 2005. We had a great team onsite and in the offices, really dedicated to making this an incredible project.

The front façade and the front entrance of the building are actually quite discreet. The concrete looks like it’s sort of emerging from the ground, with the sloped concrete board-form walls. On the north side, in fact, it’s almost completely concealed, because it really integrates and slopes up from the landscape, and is integrated with the natural grasses of the area. However, on the east side towards Parliament, the building really emerges, and there you see the façade. That is where the large artifacts are. And then, of course, the Moriyama Regeneration Hall that is really sort of expressed as this fin growing out of the building and leaning towards the Peace Tower, directed towards it. And, on there, there’s the Morse code that says, “Lest we forget (N’oublions jamais),” that creates windows and openings into the Moriyama Regeneration Hall, as well as into the concrete, which spells C-W-M-M-C-G, for the Canadian War Museum. Again, these are all sort of expressions of a military language of elements that really speak to it being a war museum.

[Sound of a door opening and closing. The sound of the wind ends.]

Emmanuelle: I find it quiet when you come into the Lobby, and there’s a moment of serenity but also sort of uncomfort. Obviously, for me, there’s a lot of memories to the building. I remember the spaces, not as finished spaces, but as spaces in motion when we were building them. 

Narrator: The Lobby is dominated by raw, tilted concrete walls. Their rough surfaces evoke makeshift military bunkers. But they also remind us of damage done in the wake of war.

Emmanuelle: So, in the Lobby . . . I mean, you can see very clearly there’s a few major walls that are inclined. And the floor is not always straight, either — in the sense that you've got ramps going up to the exhibit space, and the walls are inclined towards you. And this is there to really kind of create this sense that you’re in . . . inspired by bunkers,, you're in a very utilitarian and strong building. It’s not a finished building. You don’t see finer details. Again, you've got a language of robustness that’s symbolic of the military language, architecturally.

Camille Brouzes: I always start my tours here, because it’s a good perspective of what the space is. My name is Camille Brouzes. I’m a program interpreter at the Canadian War Museum, and we are in the main lobby. First, I will take you inside Memorial Hall. It is a very immersive space.

[Sound of footsteps.]

Narrator: If you aren’t looking for Memorial Hall, you might miss it. It’s tucked away in the corner of the Lobby. Its entry is a tall tunnel made of concrete, dramatically sloped on one side.

Camille: This hallway is very much like a trapezoid type of shape when you walk in, and it gets kind of smaller, and smaller, and smaller as you go in. You have to be more aware of your surroundings. You have to be more on edge. It’s like when a soldier goes into an unknown building, or unknown zone, and they’re trying to figure out where they’re going.

Emmanuelle: And, in front of you, you get a wall made out of copper that’s already been greened, which was actually the copper that had been used on the roof of the Library of Parliament. Tthat was recovered when they were replacing the roof. And that was installed here as part of the Museum. You feel that all these spaces are sort of linked geometrically in a very Ikind of triangular shape, until you actually enter the Memorial Hall.   

Narrator: Here, that narrow passageway suddenly gives way to an expansive interior, with light streaming through windows placed high above. 

Emmanuelle: Once you’re inside the space, it’s obviously a very quiet and solemn space. You can see on the floor the continuation of that line of November 11th at 11:00 a.m., and it’s in line with the Tombstone of the Unknown Soldier that was actually relocated here once the Museum was opened. And a small window allows the light to shine on the tombstone during Remembrance Day.

Camille: This room is really different than the other spaces, because there’s only one artifact inside, and it gives you chills.  

Narrator: That artifact is the headstone of the Unknown Soldier. It’s a simple sandstone marker. Moriyama placed it in this exact location to be a powerful focal point for reflection at exactly 11:00 a.m. on November 11th, when the sun shines directly on the headstone.

Camille: I saw it the first time — it was two years ago — and it was very special, because I didn’t expect the light to be so accurate. And also, I don’t know why, but when it does that, the mood changes in the building — even in the room — to be more serene. I would invite a lot of visitor to actually come here on Remembrance Day. It’s a whole new feeling.

Emmanuelle: You know, I was young. We were just so excited to be part of it. And Raymond Moriyama was here. All our other site members were here. We were working through all these details. I think we had a lot of energy and belief in what we were doing. It was really quite meaningful. I think what was maybe unique is actually realizing how meaningful it is to everybody else. Because I think it’s one thing to design something; it’s another thing to see the impact — the tangible impact — it has on others.

Narrator: That connection between visitors and the exhibits is what guides the Museum historians: the people who help create the exhibits and stage the artifacts. Their work is most prominent in the main galleries. And, as we head there, let’s meet one of our historians, describing what that process means to her.

Danielle Teillet:  We’re not just telling dry history here: the number of people who went to this battle, and that. We’re trying to share personal stories of individuals, and we’re trying to share things that people can connect with.

My name is Danielle Teillet, and I am the inaugural historian of Indigenous military history here at the Canadian War Museum. It means I work for the Research Division, so myself and my colleagues are responsible for a lot of the intellectual content of the exhibitions in the Museum. And so, we’re not designers, we’re not visitor advocates, but we’re the historians — we’re the people who do the research and propose the history that should be on display in the Museum. 

I think we want to connect with people — we want to educate people — but we also want, I think, people to feel seen in their own experiences as much as possible. It’s kind of nice to hear when people can connect with something, whether it’s an artifact or a photo or a letter, something from the archives, that just really speaks to them. 

I’ve had moments like that. I received one of my grandfather’s military service files from Library and Archives Canada. He served with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles during the Second World War, and he was in the Scheldt Estuary in October 1944, which was some of the nastiest fighting I can think of. And he was actually evacuated due to battle exhaustion, which is a bit of a historical term, and he didn’t go back into combat after that. 

So, it kind of broke my heart a little bit. I really felt for him. Unfortunately, he died before I could ask him questions about his service in the war. My dad and his siblings have said he didn’t talk about it a lot, but I can see why. But it was really . . . I felt like I connected with him in a way that I hadn’t before, just because I learned a little bit about an experience that he may never have actually told anybody about. So I found that really profound.

He was 19 when this happened, so he was . . . the documents I read suggested he may have seen part of his platoon get wiped out. A shell exploded near him. These are things that, when I think about my relationship with my sort-of quiet grandfather, it just sort of breaks your heart. It broke my heart, I guess, because it was hard to read that. And it’s not like I don’t know these things happen. It’s not like I don’t study conflict in war, but when you read about one single person’s experience, you get to know them in such an almost intimate way. 

And even then, I can only know so much from reading the documents — and the rest, if he was alive, could have been filled in by him. But unfortunately, there’s a lot we still will never know. And I guess that makes me, I have to imagine, similar to other people who do that kind of work. And then maybe there’s something in the galleries that really connects them to a specific memory or a specific person. And I have had to, I guess, wonder for a while, going through the Second World War gallery, “Which elements of this did my grandfather go through?” And now I have a better sense of that, because I know where he was when, and I didn’t know that before. 

Yeah. It’s definitely emotional. You care a lot. You want to learn more, and you want to share some of these stories, recognizing that these are real people. They’re not numbers; they’re not statistics. Each individual person had a family and a story, and friends, and parents, and their own experiences.

Jacques Giasson: My name is Jacques. I have been working at the War Museum for the past 19 years. This is going to be 20 years, this year, that this Museum has opened its doors. And just to let you know, as we go in, we’re going into war exhibits, so there’s going to be a bit of noise, machine-gun noises, and shell explosions. So just bear with me. 

So, this is the entrance. We’re going to walk down the hallway . . .

[Sound of a door opening, then indistinct background noises.] 

Narrator: He’s taking us to the galleries, which form the core Museum experience. There are four in all, focusing on Canadian military history from pre-colonial days through the two World Wars, the Cold War, all the way to present-day conflicts.

We are in Gallery 4, “From the Cold War to the Present,” which focuses on modern peacekeeping efforts, including operations in the former Yugoslavia. 

Jacques: This is the Iltis jeep made by the Canadian company Bombardier in Quebec. This is the jeep that a Canadian peacekeeper was driving when it got under attack in Croatia, the border of Croatia and Serbia. The driver happened to drive through a village and, out of nowhere, the Serb soldiers opened fire. The bullets went straight through the seat. You see the seat there: it’s been ripped up by bullets. 
The driver came to the Museum — I think it was 2010, if I’m not mistaken. And he comes up to me, and he said, “Would you happen to have an UN Iltis jeep in your collection?” He said, “I would like to see it.” I said, “Sure, it’s downstairs, so I can take you there and you can take a look.” 

So, I take him down there, and he’s looking at the jeep like this, and his head is down. And I can see, I could see the guy, his tear was rolling down his cheeks. The guy was really moved. So, I didn’t know what to do at that point. I thought, I’m going to give it some space. That’s what I did. I just back away, give him some space, enough time to reflect on this. 

And then I went up to him. I say, “Sir, obviously this Jeep has a big impact on you.” 

He said, “For a good reason. I was driving this vehicle when it got attacked.” 

I even, I think, said to him, “Are you kidding me? You were the driver?” 

He said, “Yeah.” 

When you look at the windshield, you see a bullet hole there, that just went over the steering wheel. So that bullet, he said, “I heard the whiz of it.” It was very close of hitting him. But it didn’t hit him. Because if that bullet that went through there had hit him, it would’ve hit him probably in the neck. So that would’ve been it for him. That’s one of the things, you know: sometimes you’re going to have people who have a direct link with the artifacts that we have in the Museum.

Narrator: And, as our tour continues, we leave behind the intensity of the main galleries, and enter the Moriyama Regeneration Hall. The difference is immediate and intentional. This space is designed for contemplation, and to offer visitors a bit of respite.

[Background noises rise and fade. Sounds of whistling wind begin.]

Camille: And one of the most, I would say, healing spaces is Regeneration Hall. It’s a beautiful space, because it has that little whistling sound.

Narrator: The chamber is dramatic, the walls tilted and cathedral-like. It’s here where Moriyama’s vision comes together: the heaviness of the steel and concrete, with the transformative power of light. 

That sound you’re hearing was recorded during its actual construction, when the wind passed through gaps in the unfinished building. When Moriyama heard the sound, it reminded him of his childhood treehouse at the internment camp. It was a place of comfort and solace. It was also the first thing he ever built. He asked someone to record it. Now it plays here for every visitor.

Camille: And I’ve done guided tours with people in the military. They say that that sound is relieving, because it sounds like a white noise. It’s really nice.

Narrator: The hall also houses the original plaster models of the statues made for the Vimy Memorial in France, carved by renowned Canadian sculptor, Walter Allward. 

Camille: We have 17 out of the 20 Walter Allward plasters. These are virtues and values that Walter Allward sculpted. So these are values that are important for Canada.

Narrator: His statues of humans in various poses are meant to be allegorical, representing virtues such as peace, truth, charity, faith, honour . . .

Camille: We have, over here, Knowledge. We have here Justice. We have The Spirit of Sacrifice, which is really a beautiful one. And then we have The Sympathy of the Canadians for the Helpless. But one of my favorites is Hope — she’s over there. 

Because Hope connects, she’s directly aligned with the Peace Tower. And when you go to the left or the right, the Peace Tower moves, but Hope doesn’t. So, it’s in this optical illusion, because hope is always there — she’s your foundation. But the peace, it is farther away; but it’s still obtainable.

Narrator: Our final stop on our tour is one of the Museum’s most imposing — yet inspiring — spaces.

Robert Gauvin: The LeBreton Gallery’s a little bit more intimate, so people do share a lot more things there. So, we’re going to make our way down there. My name is Rob. I’m a program interpreter here, which means that I give guided tours, I do school programs, and interact with a lot of the public. 

Narrator: The LeBreton Gallery is a cavernous, well-lit room that houses an array of war machines: tanks, artillery pieces, and imposing military vehicles. We are moving between massive war machines, arranged in rows, as artifacts of both humanity’s ingenuity and cruelty. When visitors confront these machines, it can sometimes bring up powerful emotions.

Rob: It was a day where it was extremely quiet in the Museum. It’s in the morning, and there’s a woman who is just kind of going through the galleries, doing her thing. And I basically am here, making sure people are okay . . . if they have questions. I just kind of noticed she just seemed to be lost, in terms of her direction. It seems like she’s going one place, backstepping. 

I slowly make my way to her, and ask her if she needs help. And she just kind of stops in her tracks, kind of looks up at me — takes about two, three seconds — and her demeanour changes. And she kind of says, “Well,” as if she was embarrassed, and then partially not embarrassed. And then she says, “I’m not really lost, but I might as well tell you just what happened to me.”

She confessed to me that she lost her son in Afghanistan, and she didn’t want to tell anyone that’s why she was here. In fact, she didn’t really know why she had to come here, but she felt she had to come here. And we are standing next to an RG Nyala, which is a vehicle that Canadians did use in Afghanistan. 
And she teared up a bit, and I just was present for her. I don’t think I could ever say anything. I don’t think I could ever say anything to console her. She just had a moment, and I just happened to be here, and she was here. It was an extremely powerful moment. It’s a moment I never forgot. 

[Piano music rises, fades to background.]

Danielle: I hope that people continue to visit, and I hope that we can share more stories, more perspectives, of Indigenous experiences. And on a broader scale, of course, I hope we can continue drawing people in with events and educational programs and exhibitions. And so I just hope that people continue to come here and learn and have those experiences.

Camille: I’m just thinking of the feeling of having somebody in your family serving. I find that that kind of allows you to have a little bit of  closure or a little bit of  healing, knowing you can actually go somewhere and remember them.

Rob: This is a very special place. Those days that something very powerful happens to you are very special, because people feel they want to share something intimate. And as someone who’s always loved history, tragedy happens in war, and there’s a form of compassion that can come from out of that. And there’s a realization that when someone’s sharing something that powerful with you, there’s kind of a form of respect that you have for the families, and for people that have gone through various forms of trauma.

Emmanuelle: We need to tell our history. I think our kids need to know history, because . . . especially the great wars — there’s more time between them — but if we forget those moments of history, I don’t think we do anybody a service. Raymond was clear that this was not about glorifying war. And I think it was clear to him that, regardless of presenting how difficult war is, there’s also the question of hope and regeneration: the idea that, again, nature heals, and that we have to look forward and really try to be optimistic about the future.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to Concrete and Light, a podcast from the Canadian War Museum. I’m Neil Morrison. Concrete and Light was written and produced by Lisa Gabriele. Additional production, mixing and sound design by me. Jenny Ellison and Steve McCullough of the Canadian War Museum are the executive producers. Check out warmuseum.ca for more stories, articles, and exhibitions from the Museum. 

[Piano music gets louder, then ends.]