Building a piece of history: the Remember Me Covid-19 memorial

The Remember Me Covid-19 memorial at St Paul’s Cathedral was a project like no other. A tribute to those who died during the pandemic, housed within one of London’s most iconic buildings. The first project of its kind to be built inside St Paul’s for nearly 150 years.

A small team from Sir Robert McAlpine Special Projects, led by Project Manager, Katharine Cary, were selected as the delivery partner for the job in May 2020. They were on site the following September.

St Paul’s is open to visitors from around the world who can join daily prayers or tour its vast structure. Working amongst this schedule of events, the chaos of Covid and the tight times constraints set by the client - the build needed to be completed in 6-months - the team set about planning their programme.

They took into consideration times of worship, access issues and a whole range of constraints that come from working in the centre of the large city, in a place revered by millions.

Katharine says: “Sound was a major issue for us. If the organist was playing, we couldn’t open the door because it would cause the tuning to go haywire, so on occasions we had to get materials in within a 1-minute window. Even one hit with a hammer resonated around the entire cathedral. We had to pick the best time to do the loud work, normally when the organ was playing!”

The elliptical glulam structure was designed by Caroe Architecture with Connolly Wellingham and was crafted in the UK, clad in decorative British oak. It’s modern but also sympathetic to Sir Christopher Wren’s stunning cathedral. And rather poetically, when learning about the provenance of the trees used for the structure, the team found out that, within them, was a tree from the same forest Wren had used when seeking timber for the building.

Katharine and her small team worked closely with the client to make sure this project was completed on schedule so that it could be enjoyed by the thousands of people who funded it. It now sits proudly in the Middlesex Chapel within the North Transept of the building. The entrance to this area remained closed for years after it was bombed during WW2. It is now open to the public.

Kat is a finalist in the prestigious Construction Manager of the Year Awards held by the CIOB on 9^th April.

Watch the video below to learn more about the project.