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National war memorial and museum in Canberra, Australia

The Australian War Memorial (AWM) is a national war memorial and museum dedicated to all Australians who died during war. The AWM is located in Campbell, a suburb of the Australian capital of Canberra. The grounds include five buildings and a sculpture garden. Most of the museum galleries and commemorative areas are contained in the Memorial Building. Plans to build a national war memorial and museum were initiated shortly after the First World War, with the AWM formally established through Commonwealth legislation in 1925. Designs for the AWM were created by Emil Sodersten and John Crust, although the onset of the Great Depression delayed its construction. Work on the Memorial Building progressed in the mid 1930s, and the AWM was officially opened to the public in 1941. Several structures designed by Denton Corker Marshall were built on the grounds from the 1980s to 2000s, to house additional museum exhibits and administrative offices. In 1993, the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier was installed inside the Memorial Building's Hall of Memory. Although the memorial was initially envisioned to only commemorate servicemembers of the First World War, the institution's scope was expanded to include servicemembers of the Second World War in 1939, servicemembers from all other wars in 1952, and all Australians who died in conflict in 1975. The memorial and museum is open daily excluding Christmas Day. The AWM holds several commemorative services on its grounds, including a nightly Last Post service, and national services for Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.

The Australian War Records Section was formed in May 1917 to ensure the preservation of records relating to the First World War. Records and relics were exhibited first in Melbourne and later Canberra. The idea for a national war memorial to commemorate veterans and to showcase war trophies in the Australian capital was also conceived by Charles Bean a year earlier in 1916. The Australian Government was supportive of Bean's efforts and established an Australian War Memorial committee in 1919. Bean, together with John Treloar, the officer in charge of the Australian War Records Section and later the AWM's first director, guided the creation of AWM. A museum to display collected war relics was also incorporated into the institution, with Bean and Treloar believing that the museum was philosophically and operationally inseparable from the memorial. In 1923, the Australian Government officially announced its intentions to build a national war memorial, with the AWM being formally established through legislation in 1925. A design competition for a new memorial was held from 1925 to 1926, although no winner was selected. Instead Emil Sodersten and John Crust were asked to collaborate and create a design that incorporates Sodersten's Art Deco style with Crust's cost cutting approach. Construction was set to begin in 1929, although its start was delayed due to the onset of the Great Depression. The project's scope was also reduced due to the Depression and a limited budget. By 1934, the "Lone Pine" pine, propagated from a seed brought back from Gallipoli, was planted on the property, and some construction work had started again. By 1935, parts of the Memorial Building were occupied by AWM staff, although the AWM was not officially opened to the public until Remembrance Day in 1941. Shortly before its official opening, the Australian Government amended the role of the AWM in 1939, to be a memorial that commemorated war veterans from the Second World War in addition to the First World War. The Australian War Memorial Act was amended again in 1952, extending the AWM's scope of commemoration to include Australian involvement in all wars. In 1975, its scope was expanded again to allow for the commemoration of Australians who died as a result of war, even those who had not served with an armed forces from Australia. In 1993, a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was installed at the AWM. From 1996 to 1999, the AWM expanded and upgraded its museum galleries and exhibitions, as well as create a space for temporary exhibitions. Christopher Latham was appointed as the AWM's first musical artist in residence in 2017. Latham began his Flowers of War series in 2015 to commemorate First World War musicians and artists. His Gallipoli Symphony premiered in 2015 and Diggers' Requiem in 2018. The memorial commissioned Latham's Vietnam Requiem, which was first performed in June 2021, and works are planned to commemorate the Korean War (2023), the Holocaust (2024), and World War II (2025).

The Australian War Memorial is located in Campbell, a suburb of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. It is situated on the symbolic terminus of the land axis of Walter Burley Griffin's plan for Canberra, at the base of Mount Ainslie. The property is approximately and is bounded by Limestone Avenue to the southwest, Fairbairn Avenue to the southeast, and Treloar Crescent to the north. It is positioned at the northern terminus of Anzac Parade, which aligns with the land axis of central Canberra's design. This axis runs from the peak of Mount Ainslie in the northeast to Capital Hill, in the southwest, a distance of The AWM's positioning along this axis was deliberate to reflect its national importance and provide it with a clear line of sight to Parliament House and vice versa. The entire AWM is listed on Australia's Commonwealth Heritage List, while the AWM and the adjacent Anzac Parade are also listed on the National Heritage List. Monuments and memorials situated at Anzac Parade are maintained separately by the NCA and do not form part of the Australian War Memorial. To the north of the park is Remembrance Nature Park, the Canberra terminus of Remembrance Driveway, a system of arboreal parks, landmarks and road side stops between Sydney and Canberra commemorating the 24 World War II and Vietnam War Victoria Cross recipients. The southern face of the AWM grounds, the Parade Ground, includes the Stone of Remembrance, a six and a half tonnes remembrance stone that serves as a focal point for major and national ceremonies at the AWM. The stone was relocated to the Parade Ground in 1962. The Parade Ground was redeveloped in 2004 to improve access for ceremonial events, with sandstone terraces and a forecourt surrounding the Stone of Remembrance. In 2021, the Stone of Remembrance was temporarily relocated to the AWM's western courtyard to accommodate construction for the museum's expansion. The Australian War Memorial houses the largest publicly owned collection of Victoria Crosses. The largest overall collection of the medal is located in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum London. However, that collection is privately owned by The Lord Ashcroft. This includes all nine Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians at Gallipoli: Alexander Burton, William Dunstan, John Hamilton, Albert Jacka, Leonard Keysor, Alfred Shout, William Symons, Hugo Throssell and Frederick Tubb. The medal issued to Shout was provided to the AWM by Kerry Stokes, who purchased the medal for a world record price of A$1,000,000 and asked that it be displayed in the Hall of Valour. The remains of a mosaic from a Byzantine church uncovered by Australian soldiers during the Second Battle of Gaza are also installed in the Hall of Valour.

The western portion of the AWM grounds was remodelled in 1999 for use as a sculpture garden. The first sculpture placed in the garden was Ewers' Australian Serviceman statue, relocated from the Memorial Building's Hall of Memory. As of 2022, a total of 25 memorials or sculptures have been installed within the grounds of the AWM, and over 150 plaques which commemorate individual unit associations can be found in the gardens. In addition to the sculpture garden, several sculptures are also located on the eastern portion of the AWM grounds.

The Australian War Memorial organises a nightly commemorative service known as the Last Post service, as well as two national services for Anzac Day and Remembrance Day each year.

The Last Post ceremony was a tradition that began in 2013 and occurs each day 16:45 AEDT. The ceremony begins with the singing of the Australian National Anthem, followed by a piper descending from the Hall of Memory. Visitors are then invited to lay wreaths and floral tributes beside the reflecting pool. A story about an individual on the memorial's Roll of Honour is then read aloud by a volunteer from the Australian Defence Force. The ceremony then concludes with the sounding of the Last Post. The ceremony typically lasts under 30 minutes.

Only five percent of the AWM's collection is displayed at any time, with the remainder being stored at the Treloar Resource Centre in the industrial suburb of Mitchell. The facility also includes workshops that are used for restoration tasks. The facility is occasionally opened to the public for "Big Things in Store" open days.

The memorial played a key role in sponsoring the official histories that were produced for World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. In addition, the memorial currently produces a quarterly magazine called Wartime. Featuring images from the memorial's collection and articles written by established historians, according to the AWM, the magazine is " devoted to the Australian experience of war; military history; and the effects of war on society". The magazine's first issue was published in November 1997. The memorial also previously published a journal titled The Journal of the Australian War Memorial In October 2003, after publishing 39 issues, the journal went into hiatus, although a fortieth and final issue was published in January 2007.