Wilfred Owen, official opening: October 1st 2011

The farming village of Ors has honoured British World War I poet Wilfred Owen with a project based on the house where he wrote his last letter home. Intrigued by the numerous British visitors to the modest forest home, the local community, led by the mayor Jacky Duminy, commissioned Turner Prize nominee Simon Patterson to create a white sculptured memorial to Owen’s universal message on the horrors of war.

La Maison Forestiere Wilfred Owen by Simon Patterson 2011 c

This incorporates the then Second Lieutenant Owen’s forest retreat where, on October 31, 1918, he scribbled by candlelight his final letter to his mother He was killed at the nearby Sambre–Oise Canal just a week before war ended. He was just 25 years old.

This resolutely contemporary project has enabled the Maison Forestière to provide a strong signal, transforming it into a site of homage to Wilfred Owen. The house has become a sculpture, a work of art incorporating both visual effect and sound. Its roof has been redone in the form of an open book. The interior presents Owen’s work, with film material and texts projected onto the walls. A spiral staircase leads down into the cellar, preserved in its original condition in order to emphasize the emotional potency of the setting.

Wilfred Owen, WW1 poet, spent his last days in Ors (near Cambrai) hiding in La maison Forestière. The house, where he wrote his final letter to his mother before he was killed, is being turned into a permanent memorial to the poet and poetry.