Rangimārie, Le Quesnoy Garden

Project: Rangimārie, Le Quesnoy Garden

Date: 2018

Client: Art & Jardins Hauts-de-France

Team: Charmaine Bailie, Zoë Carafice, Xanthe White

Uru Whakaaro, in partnership with Xanthe White Design, was commissioned to design New Zealand's memorial garden at Le Quesnoy, a town liberated by the New Zealand Division near the end of WW1, rescuing all of its 3,000 inhabitants after four years of German occupation.

The garden was named Rangimārie, a peace garden. The Māori idea of Rangimārie was used within the fortress walls where the New Zealand Division captured the town. Rangimārie is a place of calm, where we can walk with our tupuna (ancestors). This can be found in the reds of the berries, reflecting the reds of poppies in the 1918 battle fields.