National War Memorial, War memorial in Mount Cook, Wellington, New Zealand.

The National War Memorial is a stepped Art Deco tower of light grey stone blocks on Buckle Street, with a wide stepped base and three louvered openings below a circular emblem. Near the top, an open balcony with red-brown lattice railings surrounds a dark window. The tower houses a carillon of 74 bells; the Hall of Memories, an octagonal vestibule with six alcoves, occupies its base.

In 1919 the government set up a National War Memorial Committee and allocated £100,000; after debate over a road, cathedral or arch, it chose a complex at Mount Cook. Gummer and Ford won the 1929 competition, and the carillon was dedicated on Anzac Day 1932 before 10,000 people. The Hall of Memories, delayed by the Depression and war, opened on 5 April 1964; the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was added in 2004.

The Hall of Memories is an octagonal vestibule with six alcoves, each a chapel dedicated to a New Zealand military corps. Four brass Rolls of Honour list 30,108 war dead by name and rank, and Lyndon Smith's bronze family group stands at the centre. The carillon's largest bells carry inscriptions for Anzac, the Somme and Palestine; smaller bells honour nurses and the medical forces.

The memorial stands on Buckle Street in Mount Cook, beside the Dominion Museum building, and is reached on foot from central Wellington. The Hall of Memories reopened in 2015 and the carillon in 2018, but both closed again in February 2020 for further work and reopened for the 2026 Anzac Day commemoration. Check access to the tower and hall before travelling, as the two parts have not always opened together.

The carillon ranks among the world's largest by total weight and was expanded from the original 49 bells to 74 over time. This growth reflects how the memorial continued to expand its role in honoring more people as the decades passed.