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ABMC Visitor Centre

South Cambridgeshire

Project Details

£3m to £4.99M

Listed Building - Grade I, New Build

Practice

BB&C Architects Ltd

33a Bridge Street , CAMBRIDGE , Cambridgeshire , CB2 1UW , United Kingdom

Following an invited competition, in 2010 we were appointed by the American Battle Monuments Commission to design a new Visitor Centre at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Madingley. The Cemetery was formally dedicated in January 1956, following the gift of the land by the University of Cambridge, and over 3,800 US military personnel are buried here. The site is the only American Second World War cemetery in Britain. The historic layout is by Boston architects Perry Shaw & Hepburn and landscape architects, the Olmstead Brothers. This new Visitor Centre houses a permanent interactive exhibit covering the history of the North Atlantic campaign and strategic air operations in northwest Europe during World War II. The building is set within the woodland landscape to the southwest corner of the site, close, but separated from the historic section of the Cemetery by a pedestrian boardwalk approach through woodland. The project also created a new entrance court to the Cemetery, centred between the refurbished existing visitor building and a new facilities building. The twin gatehouses will reinforce the main Cemetery entrance from the Madingley Road. As the site is designated by English Heritage as a Grade 1 park and garden, a high degree of landscape co-ordination took place in developing the proposals. Landscape architects Robert Myers Associates and arboriculturalist David Brown Landscape Design have both worked closely with BB+C in developing the proposals for approval by English Heritage, the American Commission of Fine Arts and local planning authority, South Cambridgeshire District Council. Construction works were completed between 13th August 2012 and 4th November 2013, followed by the exhibition installation and the new Visitor Centre opened to the public on Memorial Day, 26th May 2014.