The Igualada Cemetery. Since the 18th century, cemeteries have been part of the design repertoire of many architects. These design interventions continued to raise the proverbial question: Are burial grounds a metaphor for the city of the dead, or the city of the living.
From utopic projects (Cenotaph of Étienne-Louis Boullée and the Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought in Venice of John Hejduk) to constructed places of rest, cemeteries evolved from being small, yet important, appendixes to a village church, growing into entire landscapes within the city (Père Lachaise in Paris) or its immediate outskirts (Bonaventure in Savannah). Eventually, newer cemeteries were isolated away from urban life (San Cataldo in Modena by Aldo Rossi or Brion in San Vito d’Altivole by Carlo Scarpa, both in Northern Italy).
Romanticism
Romanticism is placing man’s desire, his {her] dreams at the heart of the world, and seeing all this thing storm the from the point of view of freedom, and the interiority of all his [her] fantasies.
Unknown author
During my second visit, I was reminded of the architects’ intentions to design the cemetery as a metaphor of the cycle of life; the nature of being of the cemetery. A special moment caused in me a feeling that perhaps this idea was to be once again metaphorically interpreted, thus suggesting the idea of the cemetery as a ruin. The 18thcentury, and in particular under the tenets of Romanticism, favored the depiction of architectural ruins in paintings or through the construction of small pavilions in ruin; often called follies to punctuate and enhance the landscape’s pictorial qualities. European artists, such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italy), Hubert Robert (France), and architect Sir John Soane (Great Britain) attempted each in their own way, to aestheticize the past and its majestic architectural ruins through the melancholy, mystery, and loss of great civilizations.
Richard Etlin has in his writing brilliantly contextualized the history of cemeteries and their cultural burial practices in his book The Architecture of Death: The Transformation of the Cemetery in 18th Century Paris, tracing key western transformations about life and death from private to municipal places of repose.
The Igualada Cemetery
The new Igualada located west of Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital of Northern Spain, replaced the historic town’s burial ground and was conceived between 1985-94 by architects Enric Miralles and his wife and partner Carme Pinós. I was fortunate to have visited Igualada twice, thus offering a way to experience it firsthand and then to return the following year with questions begging for answers.
As an architect, my first instincts are to compare and contrast my in-situe experiences with similar programs, and in this case, understanding why so much attention had been given to the Igualada cemetery. In addition to the powerful tectonics that balanced grand gestures with rough, yet beautiful, construction details, this place held me in awe, leaving me a few hours to discover it in silence and admiration.
Was this place architecture, landscape architecture, or sculpture? The constant blurring of theses disciplines reminded me of Rosalind Krauss’ postmodern essay Sculpture in the Expanded Field (1979). But there was something more and unique about the Igualada cemetery that I had yet to understand.
Symbolism
Regardless of the religious denomination, burial grounds are highly symbolic places often compared to cultural landscapes. It was only at the end of my first visit to this cemetery that I arrived at some understanding of the architects’ use of symbolism which transformed allegory into pure poetry. Reflecting on our mortal journey from earth to heaven, my eyes were drawn to the ground and the sky, and what emerged were traces of wooden crosses inscribed within the pavement—negative imprints—and the juxtaposition of a solid beam and slit of light overhead. Taken together they seemed to bring meaning to the Igualada cemetery. A testimony of an act of building that makes Architecture magic and meaningful, thus entering the realm of the sublime in the attempt to interpret Christ’s crucifixion.
Cemetery as ruin
During my second visit, I was reminded of the architects’ intentions to design the cemetery as a metaphor of the cycle of life. A special moment caused in me a feeling that perhaps this idea was to be once again metaphorically interpreted, thus suggesting the idea of the cemetery as a ruin. The 18thcentury, and in particular under the tenets of Romanticism, favored the depiction of architectural ruins in paintings or through the construction of small pavilions in ruin; often called follies to punctuate and enhance the landscape’s pictorial qualities. European artists, such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italy), Hubert Robert (France), and architect Sir John Soane (Great Britain) attempted each in their own way, to aestheticize the past and its majestic architectural ruins through the melancholy, mystery, and loss of great civilizations.
Idea of decay and construction
As with the human body, buildings age and in the Igualada cemetery it seemed to me that this notion of decay may have been purposively allowed to proceed, and even at times celebrated. Particularly with the architects’ spatial consideration given to two adjacent stairs. While the right stair was carefully constructed, allowing a correct rise-to-tread ratio; a set of functional handrails to guide ascent; and a simple detailing of the tread’s nosing, the most vulnerable part of a step; by contrast, the stair to the left was very different.
Paralleling the first flight of steps, two elongated and over-scaled steps led to a steep incline that channeled rain water to flow down on the steps, thus creating a weathered texture and a beautiful marbleized carpet of moss on the concrete. Here, I noticed that each steps’ nose had eroded, eventually exposing the aggregate; in other words, exposing the history of its making and of its decay -culture and nature. The juxtaposition of these two modes of circulation, one functional and living, the other suggestive and decaying, left me with a renewed certitude that the fragility of life can be expressed through inert materials. In other words, architecture retained its material and metaphysical calling.
ARTE video on the Igualada Cemetery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7himriJx5-s&list=PL2y4cmqo29uBZTmdJ7kqOv-L3DODzC-Ym&index=26 (added 08.31.2022)
Additional Blogs of interest
Church Architecture of Arantzazu, Basque region
National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama
Architectural Education: Sketching on a filed trip. Part 1
Church facade in Ticino, Switzerland: Part 1
Church facade in Ticino, Switzerland: Part 2
For additional images from the author’s collection on the Igualada cemetery, visit atelierdehahn