Owhiro Crematorium by maya kano

The Owhiro Crematorium An architectural representation of the man-made demise of a fragile landscape

Contents Research Field Research Question Statement of Research Methodology Synopsis Academic Context: Key Texts and Precedents Findings: Death in the Social Context Historical shift The funeral home The cemetery and the tombstone Symbolic exchange and death Intellectualisation of the denial of death The connection between imminent consciousness and our bodies Pessimism surrounding death and a pandemic Groundless, earthbound Ecological Implications Change is the only constant Treatment of ground Dark space Architectural Precedents The relation between the land and cemetery/crematorium and the body with reference to Asplund’s and Lewerentz’s works. Places that induce contemplation

The connection between repeated rhythmical movement and self The relation between the land and man with reference to Miralles and Pinos’s Igualada Cemetery Concept of time The importance of water and tides Sky and horizon Physical properties of light Turrell’s Roden Crater Architectural Argument Significance of Research Outcomes Further Research References List Bibliography

Research Field This project is an architectural expression of mortality.

Research Question How can architecture force death back into social consciousness and challenge us to re-evaluate our place in the cosmos? Moreover, how can architecture transgress the exclusion of death from society as a fundamental environmental process?

Research Methodology The contextualisation of death in contemporary society and an architectural expression of the fragility of the Owhiro landscape was investigated through:

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Research conducted during visits to Wellington cemeteries and funeral homes to investigate current practice and how it relates to the past and future. Interviews were conducted with cemetery workers and a funeral director.

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Extensive reading on the history of death in society, mourning and fear within society. In addition to this, analyses of influential crematoriums, landscapes of contemplation, tombs and memorials and architecture projects concerning death were conducted. (refer to bibliography)

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An exposed and ever-changing site, which had previously functioned as a quarry and consequently had a resonance of death, was deliberately chosen.

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The effects and limitations generated on the site by temporality and motion were evaluated and tested using film, modeling and drawing on the site.

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Sections, site plans, and perspectives from the eyes of the mourner were then explored in relation to rituals and rhythms extracted from readings.

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A crematorium in response a potential pandemic crisis was considered as a vehicle to discuss the exclusion of death from contemporary Western society.

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The architectural programme was explored in response to the recreational purposes of the site and the effects of flux of the weather and tides on the site allowing it to recreate itself.

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The dormant function of the architecture was explored as way of communicating a potential death threat.

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Consideration was then given to the role of the dormant building and whether it needed to have another function to draw an audience.

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The public’s interpretation of this dormant function was formulated in terms of a student learning process about the exclusion of death from contemporary society. The design deliberately encourages students to respond to the architecture, initially at micro and later at macro scale.

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The crematorium’s different possible users and visitors such as boaters, surfers, fishermen, walkers, ecologists, bird watchers and their discursive rituals were discussed in accordance with their different purposes.

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Design accommodation was also allowed for mass mourners.

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The crematorium’s role as a response to the man-made demise of the Owhiro environment was discussed and explored as a deconstructed landscape. Moreover, the overbearing scale of the cliffs, rugged coast-line and sea was considered as the pivotal attraction of the crematorium audience.

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Consideration was then given to how architecture could reflect man’s previous attempts to control the landscape revealing its volatile characteristics.

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Discussion of how the building would be activated in the event of a pandemic took place.

Synopsis This project emphasises architecture’s role in the process of dealing with the denial and physicality of death. It encompasses the contemporary worldwide preoccupation with the possible threat of a pandemic, providing a forward thinking response to a complex, unfamiliar scenario hitherto unexplored by mainstream architects. My main objective in designing the Owhiro Crematorium is to question the temporary nature of our existence through a representational commentary on man’s control of the natural environment. My exegesis addresses how architecture can comment on the former quarry’s destruction by connecting the mourners, students, recreational users such as boaters, surfers, fishermen, walkers and ecologists to the fragility of the landscape while challenging them to think about their own vulnerability and mortality. The crematorium is intended to encourage engagement with the site and the opening up of multiple interpretations and reactions. The Owhiro Crematoirum also addresses different states of concealment through its programming within the landscape and the importance of the earth and its unknown qualities. My research has lead to investigations of:

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changing Western attitudes to death and the deceased

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contemporary reduction, clinicalisation and impersonalisation in Western attitudes to death and social threats

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the importance of marking a historical moment to provide continuity with the past and the future

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the representation of architecture to reveal fragility/truth in the natural elements (the hierarchy of the programme to depict the implications of man’s impact on nature)

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the importance of ground as an alternative horizon of revelation

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death involving the immersion in the earth

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how we can connect with the larger forces/cosmos

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concepts of; void, dark space, disorientation, time, water, sky and light.

Academic Context: key texts and precedents Key texts include: •

Aries, Philippe: The Hour of Our Death. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1981

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Bachelard, Gaston: The Poetics of Space. Massachusetts: Beacon Press. 1969

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Baudrillard, Jean: Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage Publications. 1993

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Constant, Caroline: The Woodland Cemetery: Towards a Spiritual Landscape. Sweden: Byggforlaget. 1994

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Vidler, Anthony: The Architectural Uncanny. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 1992

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Zabalbeascoa, Anatxu: Igualada Cemetery Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos. London: Phaidon Press Ltd. 1996

Issues explored through reading and viewing: •

Death: historical, social, metaphysical, monuments and architecture of death

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Crematoriums, cemeteries, funeral homes

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Phenomenology of landscape Post disaster evaluation of treatment of corpses

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Pandemic control

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Social fear and pessimism surrounding death and a pandemic

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Speed of society and technology

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Concepts of time and water

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Architecture of darkness

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Programme and landscape

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Dichotomies such as opaque versus transparency, death versus life, fragility versus permanence, sentimental renderings versus atavistic pagan rituals, humanity versus nature, light versus dark

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Representation of the infinite within architecture

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Representation in the discussion of time, space and movement

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Representation of death in art and cinema

Death in the Social Context: Historical shift in the acceptance of death

Since the earliest documentation of Western mourning practices and rituals, there have been some significant shifts in issues surrounding death and the location of the dying and the deceased. According to Aries, from 5AD to the eighteenth-century, death was a public event and mourning was an ostentatious display. During this time cemeteries were located inside cities and were also used as places for picnics, drinking and sleeping. During the European Humanist Renaissance around 1491, there was a romantic acceptance of death in the sense that rituals were organised by the dying themselves “and they departed easily, as if they were moving into a new house.”1 There was an acceptance in the lamentation between the dying person and the survivors. During this period however, through habit, education and the death ritual, the notion of death became influenced by a series of prejudices which resonate today. From the mid-twentieth century, there was a steady change in attitudes to death in some Western consumer societies.

Aries, Philippe: Western Attitudes Towards Death. Baltimore: The John Hopkins

Figure one illustrates shifts in death place and body disposal. Figure one

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i) Death in the home up until the early twentieth century ii) Charnel (vault): used to for the decaying process prior to bone displays in ossuaries. These were juxtaposed with markets and recreation areas. iii) Mid twentieth century onwards, institutional death iv) Cemeteries in the outskirts of the city

As figure one shows, there has been a progressive historical separation between the living and the dead. There has also been a gradual shift to a deritualisation and a streamlining of death related ceremonies and mourning. In the twenty-first century, in most Western societies, death is down played and the elderly have for the most part become marked as ‘carriers of death’ and have been moved to the periphery of society. Sociologists such as Kamerman comment on the insignificance of dying saying; “As our life has

little consequence to our community, so too has our death.”2 Institutional bureaucratic structures intensify this unimportance and irrelevance. Negativity and discrimination against the aged and death are prevalent in contemporary society. In 1997, Baudrillard, compared retirement with the third world, which is segregated and placed in a situation of “economic parasitism.” Reflections such as these reinforce a major shift in the treatment of the elderly as carriers of death, which has occurred over the last century. These shifts in attitudes towards the acceptance of death are closely related to this preoccupation of the storage of the deceased and the death site. Most people die in the clinical, impersonal environment of the hospital in the care of strangers. This reduction in the public witnessing of deterioration of the dying combined with an alien environment dedicated to work, routines and disposal, creates a comfortable concealment of the process of death. Baudrillard aptly states: “Death like mourning, has become obsene and awkward, and it is good taste to hide it, since it can offend the well being of others.”3 As part of this concealment process we consequently find ourselves artificially extending the lives of many beyond the point at which they would have died naturally. In contrast to this artificial extension of life and treatment of death as an obscenity, this project will reinstate the social acceptance of death by

Kamerman, Jack: Death in the midst of life: Social and cultural influences on

death, grief and mourning. Prentice Hall. 1998:9 3

Baudrillard, Jean: Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage Publications. 1993: 182

placing a waiting architectural representation of death in an every day environment used for recreation, leisure and education.

Death in the Social Context: The Lynchgate Funeral Home

In Wellington funeral homes, death is shielded from the mourners and fabricated into a misconception of domestic comfort. Décor, roses and ornaments are all used to simultaneously create an illusion of hygiene and familiarity. The company provides all services ranging from the pick up to the cremation of the corpse. This highlights the contemporary preoccupation with prioritizing convenience over death. The director of Lynchgate Funeral Home stated that he considered himself a glamorous version of a rubbish collector saying: “We’re just glorified garbage collectors really.”(July 27. 2006) Mr Patterson markets his business and establishes rapport with his clients by using phrases such as: “Mother nature’s a wonderful thing.” Thus, the client is able to abnegate responsibility for dealing with the practicalities of a relative’s death. Paradoxically, the whole morgue scenario is devoid of any association with the natural environment, right down to the artificial flowers and coffins containing corpses lined up in the garage.

Figure 2: Te Aro Funeral Home

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i) Entrance-Funeral parlor is made to seem like the extension of a home. ii) Interior with paired seating inconducive to conversation and spending long periods of time. iii) Curtains to screen out the outside world. iv) Artificial comforts such as lollipops and soft toys to create a sense of familiarity.

Furthermore, the employees derive satisfaction from reconstituting and even enhancing corpses. This practice emphasises the artificiality which we impose on the deceased to conceal the face of death for our own comfort. This paradox in what is perceived to be natural is highlighted by Baudrillard in his description of: “A faked death, idealized in the colours of life”4 In contemporary New Zealand funeral practice death is perceived by many to 4

Baudrillard, Jean: Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage Publications. 1993: 181

be shameful, ugly and obscene, naturalized in a stuffed simulacrum of life. We habitually conceal corpses dressed in their Sunday best while hiding their caskets with flowers. In stark contrast to this and the other Wellington franchises, which do not accept death as part of the life process, the Owhiro Crematorium will acknowledge that death is a continual process. Furthermore, in contrast to the divestment of death to roles of convenience, concealment, and artificial comfort devices, it will bring the physical exploration of natural ecological elements such as the sea, horizon and steep hills to the fore.

Death in the Social Context: The cemetery and the tombstone

Wellington cemeteries provide a further reference point in terms of a changing approach to the housing and the location of the dead. Principally, they provide visiting places of consolation to mourners and enable them to feel reunited with the deceased. We need to be able to visualize a death place if we cannot actually go there. While mourning stones advertise grief, provide a physical stamp on the earth and are used as monuments to remind the living to make provision for the afterlife in the traditional corners of the cemetery, the newly established corners have been reduced to hygienic, ecomical demarcations devoid of headstones or shadows. This is illustrated in Figure 3. Figure 3: Karori Cemetery

i) Traditional Corner

ii) Area Under Current Development

iii) Mourner interacting with the tombstone

The Owhiro Crematorium accentuates the importance of both life and death while not denying the uncertain aspects of mass destruction caused by a pandemic. It will deemphasise the clinical aspects of death evident in the of Wellington cemeteries through the use of cuts into the land to create depth within the sky, capture shadows within the land and allow for sea flooding into the memorial spaces. It will provide a mark for the pandemic which will allow mourners to find a means of expression and facilitate communication in what has occurred, or what could occur. The importance of a specifically dedicated place to mark a historical crisis such as a possible future pandemic, help us reflect on the evolution of our society. Unless construction such as the Owhiro Crematorium is built to cater for disasters of this nature, there will be no sense of continuity with the past or link with the future. Recent global calamities such as the Sri Lankan Tsunami in 2004 and New Orleans 2006 typhoon, have demonstrated that inadequate storage and disposal of corpses, not to mention an architectural representation of remembrance, has resulted in much psychological trauma and illness. In a disaster scenario of these proportions, the Owhiro Crematorium will provide a poetic, humanitarian response by catering to an individual’s journey as well as mass ceremonies to provide a sense of continuity and community. Consistent with Aries’ theory that the cemetery creates “a microcosm of the whole society by presenting those who have died,”5 the Owhiro Crematorium reflects changing contemporary global attitudes to death and social threats.

Aries, Philippe: The Hour of Our Death. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1981: 542

Death in the Social Context: The distancing of death: social context

Contemporary representation of death is derived from the separation of meaning from the actual event and value. In some Western societies, death has become biological and has been and deprived of its symbolic meaning and implies an end. With no clear concept of a symbolic end, death is left undefined by many Westerners. In this lack of definition, death is treated like a myth because it is discussed in terms of simulacra and scientific context. In accordance with this proposition, the waiting period of the Owhiro Crematorium will not only provide a specific place to allow individuals to connect with the infinite space of their consciousness but will more importantly be a catalyst for the anticipation of death.

Death in the Social Context: The connection between our minds and our bodies

The significance of contemplation and space within the mind allows the individual to accept death as a process. Architectural representation can reflect our grasp of imminent consciousness through the hierarchical positioning of ground and physical temporal indicators. Baudrillard asserts that this imminent consciousness is more importantly localised in the body when he states: “This death…must be conjured up and localised in a precise point of time and place: the body.”6 Daily routine, convenience and dependence on simulacra desensitise our bodies, which as extensions of the ground are important vehicles for registering decay of the body and weathering of the land. Prevention against patina, oxidisation and dust objectify our bodies in an abstract immortality, which is transformed into a denial of death. Pichler’s drawings of the ‘House next to the Smithy’ reflect the body’s blending into the earth7, while Barthes compares the cycles of the seasons to the physical deterioration in our bodies.8 The Owhiro Crematorium will emphasise this physical connection between body and ground both through the physical journey through the site and changing spatial sequences in response to the force of the wind and the sea.

Baudrillard, Jean: Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage Publications: 1993:159 7

Lewis, Diane: Walter Pichler Drawings, Sculptures, Architecture. St. Margarethen: Samson Druck. 2000 8 Barthes, Roland: Incidents. California: University of California Press. 1992: 6-7

Death in the Social Context: Pessimism surrounding death and a pandemic

Current preoccupations and fears surrounding the consequences of a pandemic should not inhibit us from exploring the links between actual events and perceived ways of dealing with disasters. Having said this, designers and social planners cannot entirely disregard a pervasive social pessimism. Bailey emphasises that feeling pessimistic is not some kind of aberration and that “If we can see good reasons for the dominance of gloomy views of the future the risk of increasing the sense of foreboding should not inhibit us from linking what we think and feel with what we can see happening.”9 In the Owhiro Crematorium, acknowledgement and acceptance of a place within our history and future will result in a redirection of this public fear of the unknown and death into something more positive or at least without stigma. The representation of the crematorium comments on the condition of social pessimism and degradation of the land. It is inserted into the ground and represents itself as a fragmented void to the public. The crematorium’s internal hierarchical choreography is constructed through various states of concealment, revelation and permanence to the students, individual and mass mourners. The building will be partially in dialogue and partially in tension with its surroundings.

Bailey, Joe: Pessimism. New York: Routledge Inc. 1988:vii

Ecological Implications: Change is the only constant

Related to my emphasis on man’s demise of the landscape, the vulnerability of the quarry and coastline to erosion is utilized to create a particular architectural representation of nature and death. The meaning conveyed when architecture is used to reveal and imply certain intrinsic conditions on a place such as mortality is discussed by Miralles as accepting the magmatic, fluctuating nature of the environment by intensifying architectural (built) relations but without trying to resolve them within a constant framework. This architect emphasises the importance in the recognition of flux by stating: “We live in a reality in transit, what was regarded as solid…now become revealed as fragile and unstable and that change is the only constant.”10 Consequently, the disclosure of the vulnerable, volatile earth through architecture demonstrates a multiple reality where architecture is not perceived to operate as a stable place of reference. This vulnerability and volatility have been taken into account in the design of the Owhiro Crematorium which will respond architecturally to erosion of the site. Furthermore, rather than operating from a fixed series of references, the Owhiro Crematorium will not aspire to resolve the unstable nature of the environmental site nor avoid contact with the ground. The site encapsulates the paradox of beauty forged from the environmental destruction of the past effects of quarrying. We find ourselves in a disintegrating landscape but take no responsibility for its destruction as revealed in figure four below. 10

Paez, Roger: A Marine Kind of Land. Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme. n. 243: 75-79

Figure four

Open pit copper mine at Butte, Montana, 198911

Such a break down of the relations between architecture, object and landscape enables the architecture itself to become the environment which is continually in a state of transformation. The continuity of these elements within the Owhiro Crematorium is integral in establishing the mourning, and recreational area as an active landscape subject to the life/death processes. The architecture of the dormant crematorium not to visually impair these processes will challenge the mourner, recreational user and student in their understanding of the environment as a series of vulnerable processes.

Paez, Roger: A Marine Kind of Land. Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme. n. 243: 75-79

Ecological Implications: What is ground in the context of the Owhiro Crematorium?

Ground has many levels of reading, it is not neutral. It is a repository of history and memory which is brought to life in through architecture. In this project, the architectural representation of ground undermines the structure through the insertion of the crematorium into the earth, which provokes awareness of the ground beneath us. The magnitude of ground is stressed by Heidegger in his Grundgedanke (Thoughts on Ground) who highlights that ground is concealment and therefore truth saying: “…we know that belonging to our ‘truth,’ in the sense of the ‘world,’ is an indefinitely large totality of other possible ‘truths,’ alternative horizons of disclosure, ‘views’ disclosing other ‘sides’ of our world of beings…”12 This tendency to believe only what is visible is challenged by dark spaces within the inhabitable structures, submerged crematorium and through the inversion of ground and non-ground to prioritize the ground in the life-death process. Humans have always been careful to connect with the ground visually and propioceptively due to artificially built housing and city environments and this connection has a direct bearing on pavement design. We connect visually and psychologically to an area surrounding our feet.

Young, Julian: Heidegger’s Philosophy of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. 2001

Williams, who studies interior pavements argues that: “pavements are central to mankind’s architectural—and intellectual—development.”13 The architectural representation of the ground plays a crucial role in connecting the observer to all surrounding structures like the vast landscapes of the Owhiro Crematorium. As a civic and public space which is subject to contemplation and where the mourners will have predominantly downcast vision, it is integral that the Owhiro Crematorium incorporates the pathway as part of the fractal design hierarchy so that this connection with the surrounding natural environment such as the steep hills, challenges public perception of the human demise of the landscape. To achieve spatial coherence and connection to surroundings, progression in scale has been employed to create hierarchical linking The Owhiro Crematorium uses also use fractal geometry derived from the surrounding environment in various scales throughout the active parts of the building, ground paving and more refined built elements which come into bodily contact such as seats. The scale of ground paving also responds to the number of people intended to use that pathway such as individual mourner, mass mourner, recreational user, or student. For example, the ground vocabulary for the mass mourners speak of the direction of the journey, which leads through the cardinal points of the Owhiro Crematorium

Williams, Kim: Pavements and Hierarchy, 2000. Http://www.nexusjournal.com/Miki-Sali-Yu.html

Dark space

In contrast to light spaces, which are perceived to be healthy, rational and moral, dark space is connected with the unseen, the diseased instrument which damages society. Thus it can be said that the provision of dark spaces deepens structure through the removal of the visible. In his essay Dark Space, Vidler comments that the movement of dark space enables the building to become a backdrop. He discusses Boullee’s concept of explored dark spaces through the submersion of parts of buildings. The latter was attempting create stark contrasts between light and darkness. He was conscious of how his work would look in the dark. Boullee was impressed by shadows, the effect of mass objects detached in black against a backdrop of extreme light. To him, this is what nature offered in mourning. He formed a “buried architecture,”14 which was low and compressed in proportions and used stripped walls devoid of ornamentation to speak of the melancholy of mourning. In the Owhiro Crematorium, dark space is used for mourners and students to discover their connection to the landscape. Rather than relating to the diseased and fear associated with death and the pandemic, dark spaces represent opportunities to gain insight. This repression of the visible connects with perception and privileged access to truth.

Vidler, Anthony: The Architectural Uncanny. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 1992: 170

Architectural Precedents: The relation between the land and cemetery/crematorium and the body with reference to Asplund’s and Lewerentz’s works.

In the design of Asplund’s and Lewerentz’s 1916 Malmo Easter Cemetery, the inherent character of the landscape has been preserved to exploit its natural monumentality the ridge was used as a natural boundary to separate burial zones and was lined with chapels, mausoleums and a crematorium. The ridge’s visual prominence is used to amplify the mourner’s sense of orientation in combination with layers of planting to contribute to a feeling of removal from the realm of daily life. This manipulation of landscape is also evident in their 1919-1940 Woodland Cemetery to emphasise death as a natural event involving immersion in the earth. To connect mourners to the larger surroundings, the dramatic design and sequencing of points of threshold, focus on where mourners will be looking, moving and what they will be touching. This drama can be interpreted from drawing a section through the crematorium to the burial mound. While at one end, a body is dropped beneath the floor and cremated underground, the other end of the section curves up over a burial mound. These two points are held in tension by a pond in the middle, which serves as a moment for reflection and held time. The pond amplifies the feeling of silence, interlocks the earth and the sky and dematerialises its surroundings in its reflection. This section depicts a clear cyclic gesture through the planning and integration of the building within the landscape.

The light and darkness perceived by mourners on the pathway varies according to whether they are ascending or descending due to narrow slits of space between tall forests. In contrast to these narrow pathways, there are expansive landscapes where the ground is raised. This creates possibilities for numerous traverse routes. The focus on what the mourners will touch is evident in the built domestic environment, where door handles are placed at eye level. Seats which curve out from the ground and the wall, are employed to physically reveal what is supporting the mourners. Wide entrances designed to the scale of a coffin, emphasise absence thus the ritual of the carrying of the corpses is evident even though the people are not there. Figure five

Narrow pathways15

Krinke, Rebecca: Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation. New York: Routledge. 2005: 12

These formal relations between the mourner and their vision, journey and physicality, create the idea of absence; link between the body and mind and connect the self with the greater regeneration in the earth. The Owhiro Crematorium creates a connection between body and mind by revealing what is physically supporting the bodies of mourners, students and recreational users. Similar effects and impacts will be achieved: through the use of ordering devices, the architectonic arrangement of trees and hedges, clearings, the treatment of light, hinge points and through hierarchy in change of scale.

Places that induce contemplation

Writers such as Bachelard in The Poetics of Space16 discuss the fundamental human need to find places where we can connect with the infinite. Cosmic cycles encourage us to think about the temporality and meaning of our existence and the essential ties between man and nature. Paradoxically, the very places we seek are often the places we destroy as is evident in the quarry scenario. Writers like Krinke emphasize that such contemplation is not just visual, that it is experienced in layers connected with visual, educational, body orientated, intellectual, physical and emotional understanding. What is seen and experienced initially merges into a different consciousness. In her analysis of the Woodland Cemetery as a site of contemplation, the regenerative power of nature was found in the visual interlocking of the sky. This was achieved through the use of trees to connect the viewer to the sky, for framing, masking and for marking out cardinal points.

Bachelard, Gaston: The Poetics of Space.Massachusetts: Beacon Press. 1969: 183-210

Figure six

View from Monument Hall in the Woodland Cemetery17

In contrast to this carefully maintained landscape (as shown in figure six), the Owhiro Crematorium reflects the natural decaying and weathering process. As a site of contemplation, readings of the juxtaposition of each stand point such as Monument Hall and Meditation Grove at Woodland cemetery were found to intensify their interplay. The views from each of the standpoints, conduct a physical and visual connection between the mourner and the surroundings as a backdrop. This instills a sense of small scale on the mourners, which paradoxically creates a sense of familiarity.

Krinke, Rebecca: Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation. New York: Routledge. 2005: 11

A sense of orientation within the cosmos in the Owhiro Crematorium is emphasised through deliberately fragmented spacing of chapels, memorial spaces, entrance, sea platforms and a crematorium. The division of these spaces allows contemplation of specific moments within the whole process of mourning. Furthermore, these built elements will be subordinate in scale and structure to the surrounding hills and ground. Stairs within the landscape intensify the crescendo towards the main standpoints in the area taking the mourner and student further from their everyday world. They compensate for the climber’s weariness as they ascend to the grove by decreasing in height and increasing in depth and they become larger as one nears the top. This rhythmical use of stairs is used to relate on a human scale to hills surrounding the Owhiro Crematorium.

The connection between repeated rhythmical movement and self

The use of repeated, rhythmic movements can heighten emotional states. Twentieth century theatre designer Adolphe Appia experiments with ritualistic planning of performance and investigates the origins of mortality. This type of ritual is used to separate the participant from previous environments, through disorientation. According to Innes, this disorientation “…opens spectator’s minds by breaking down conventional responses.”18 Physical disorientation in the Owhiro Crematorium is intended to motivate mourners to explore concealed aspects of the environment to reveal the degraded landscape. The Owhiro Crematorium addresses the relation between the movement of the human body through time and rhythmic spaces through multiple stairways, numerous staging platforms, which stagger up the hill and stairways leading into the water. The walkways will work on both the outer disorientation and inner re-orientation. Moreover, these rhythmic patterns connect with the incoming and outgoing tides, the eroding vulnerable nature of the hills and ground and the sky’s luminosity.

Innes, Christopher: Avant Garde Theatre: 1892-1992. New York: Routledge Inc.1993: 53

Architectural Precedents: The relation between the land and man with reference to Miralles and Pinos’s Igualada Cemetery

The importance of the relation between programme and environment cannot be understated, especially in the Owhiro Crematorium, due to the dormant nature of the construction and its active function as a commentary on the degeneration of the landscape. Special attention has been given to this connection due to its function as a place of reflection in an unstable, semiisolated environment. Miralles and Pinos’s Igualada Cemetery reflects the importance of the use of programme to define both man-made and preexisting traces in natural landscape to communicate the passage of time. This is highlighted in the Igualada Cemetery through its awaiting intervention of the changing environment. With time, weathering, covering and eroding allow the man-made to become part of the natural landscape. The appreciation of natural processes is described by Miralles as “An optimistic reminder of the continual transformation of nature and matter.” Thus this transformation of matter allows the built work to merge with the earth without being subsumed by it and consequently able to exist in its own right as another layer of the land. The relation between the design and the programme of the Owhiro Crematorium communicates the passage of time with in its dormant position. The active environment will be covered with planting and sand, which will erode with water, sun, wind and eventually be completely submerged. The implication of possible death in an environment, which is

primarily to challenge our connection to the external environment, allows life to subtly pervade the territory of the possible dead. Figure seven

View of the opening leading to the entrance area.

In the Igualada Cemetery, the connection between figure and ground is conducted through burial niches, pathing, ramps, decks and concrete benches evident in figure seven. These construction elements facilitate the spatial exploration of relations such as man-architecture, architecture-site, site-landscape and thus, man-landscape. The Owhiro Crematorium also employs built elements and excavation to create spatial movement to encourage mourners, students and recreational user s to explore the aforementioned connections.

Concept of time

Time and death are inextricably linked in architecture whether through the aging of materials, rhythmic rituals or permanence of form. Khronophobia, the fear of time, is a twenty-first century phenomenon. This anxiety originates from an obsessive rejection of aging, decay and death. The effect of this is that it undermines the ‘ground of being.’ Objects are replaced before they have acquired any trace of age or use and some buildings for their timeless presence. The other side to this fear is the fear of life. As time loses its depth and resonance in the archaic past, man loses his sense of self as a historical being, and is threatened by time’s revenge. Booth emphasises that time associated with the past, present and the future are inextricably linked and stresses that people cannot merely sit in one epoch. “The natural satisfaction of life lies in vital participation in forms of life that extend beyond the boundaries of individual existence.”19 The architecture of the project has to mediate between the technological present and preoccupations with the time frames in daily routines. Increasingly, preoccupation with the future dictates how we chose to use our time in the present. This concept has been reinforced by Bodei, who suggests that “our temporal relations have gone through an inversion: we

Pallasmaa, Juhani: Encounters: Architectural Essays. Finland: Rakennustieto Oy. 2005: 309

regard the flow of time as something that runs from the future to the present and the past, and not as it traditionally, from the past to the present.”20 The Owhiro Crematorium encompasses the idea of such future projection. The impact of time on the building’s durability and aesthetic impermanence will also be reflected through the structure and materials. Geological processes such as weathering challenge the progression of time in terms of deterioration. The Owhiro Crematorium reflects a contemporary shift from past desire to build permanent structures to accommodate ecological impermanence.

Pallasmaa, Juhani: Encounters: Architectural Essays. Finland: Rakennustieto Oy. 2005: 313

The importance of water and tides

The importance of water in architecture has been explored in terms of questioning our need for permanence. I evaluated its role in temporal rhythms and rituals with reference to Pallasmaa’s 1995 essay Time and Melancholy. Pallasmaa exemplifies that time and water inevitably flows into death. He contrasts the constant movement of the tides’ architectural immobility. This concept is also evident in Scarpa’s Brion Tomb, where the architecture extends beneath the surface of the water and reflects the space between life and death. The water mediates between these two realms. From a distance, water appears as an opaque line stabilising the sky, while viewed from closer up it is transparent. The architectural representation of Owhiro Crematorium uses the interstitial state between high and low tides, emphasising distance and proximity. This is achieved through revelation and concealment, the flooding of parts of the built environment and detailing how water is returned to the ground. Furthermore, the tidal sounds are echoed in parts of the built environment.

Sky and horizon

The horizon (water and sky) divides opacity from transparency and connects with the infinite. Virilio describes this horizontal power as one which can be addressed vertically when he debates: “But the horizon, the skyline…is also… a vertical littoral, the one which separates ‘the void from ‘the full.’”21 This vertical treatment of the horizon is utilized in the Owhiro Crematorium through cutting the horizon and adding spatial depth to the sky. Open underground structure and the fragmented void created by the crematorium roof add depth, while concrete vertical planes in the sea cut the sky. This vertical connection establishes a hierarchy of the ground and reinforces the weight of the earth as a repository of history and memory. Virilio comments in his study of military bunkers on the intent of the architecture, the convergence between the reality of the structure and its commentary on the sea. By facing out to the open sea (the void), the bunkers challenge awareness of spatial phenomena by emphasising the strong pull of the shores. Virilio compares them to funeral architecture, when he states: ” this analogy between the funeral archetype and military architecture…this insane situation looking out over the ocean…This waiting before the infinite oceanic?”22 This position of waiting in front of the sea

Virilio, Paul: Open Sky. New York: Verso. 1998:1

Virilio, Paul: Bunker Archeology. New York: Princeton Architectural Press:1994: 11

relates to the notion of the infinite expression of possibilities evident in figure eight. Figure eight

` i) Concrete trenches

ii) Tilting23

The implications of the bunker’s mono functional monolith’s impact on sea and sky, relate to the Owhiro Crematorium’s intention as an architectural representation. The insertion of a mono-functioning building imposes a commentary on the void created by the quarrying of the hills waiting to respond a response to the fear created in a pandemic.

Virilio, Paul: Bunker Archeology. New York: Princeton Architectural Press:1994:

162, 177

Physical properties of light

Light has a physical presence evident when we look into space and are conscious of our visual exploration. Light is of supreme importance in the vastly changing hues of an infinite horizon and determines our perception of the cosmos. As we look out to where the sea meets the horizon, we form a different perception of how we look at light. Turrell uses light as a material in its physical aspects to “feel the repose to temperature and its presence in space, not on a wall.”24 He describes this ideal space of light as one where the viewer is suspended and allowed to explore the infinite. This process is achieved by giving form to volume, rather than creating form within volume. This use of the space of the sky as an expansion of being to heighten our understanding of our perceptual relation to the world, also relates to philosopher Bachelard , who describes the state of “Intimate immensity” of the motionless man, when we are dreaming in a world that is immense. The Owhiro Crematorium emphasises the physical properties of the atmosphere through delineating the point where the hills meet the sky. It frames views to the sky, pulling the sky down and giving it a physical quality.

Andrews, Richard and Bruce, Chris: James Turrell: Sensing Space. Henry

Gallery Association. Seattle: 1992: 12

Architectural Precedents: Turrell’s Roden Crater

The 500,000-year-old cinder cone, Roden Crater, embodies the dynamic forces of nature and tracks the systematic passage of time as dictated by the movement of the sun, planets, stars, earth and moon. The emphasis of ground as a platform from which to view the infinite changes in the sky is evident in Turrell’s project. The architectural representation of Turrell’s understanding of the sky is entirely conducted from within the crater and it appears untouched from the exterior. Various types of internal framing such as tunnels and chambers act as cameras projecting the sky’s image onto a wall spaces. The capturing of the sky into earth bound spaces enables observers to connect to a time beyond their own and forces them to see the held potential within the sky usually taken for granted. Such a crater captures some of the paradoxical qualities of the sky: its hugeness and intimacy, its substance and intangibility, its mutability and permanence, its luminosity and opaqueness. The Owhiro Crematorium uses framing of the sky from different vertical heights, to bring the sky down into the void spaces. It uses sky projections to show the fluctuations and movements within the sky mirroring the erosion process.

Architectural Argument

In our technological speed driven, global society we are swamped by indeterminacy. The way we live and reference our decisions is based on codes and values which have evolved from images and representations. We rely on technology and science to increase longevity and distance ourselves from the natural processes such as aging and death. The political and moral climates of the early twenty-first century also condition social attitudes and expectations of mortality. Despite the sophistication resulting from technological and scientific progress, we are not immune to anxieties regarding our personal security. In fact, the complexity and diversity of choices now available to us has increased our propensity towards apprehension, which is particularly evident in potentially threatening situation such as the bird-flu pandemic. Most contemporary architecture denies potential threats, which are often shelved. The crisis is the crux to my project of which the pandemic is the symptom. It destabilises the hierarchy between human control and nature. In this process of destabilisation, death is forced back into social consciousness. The pandemic, as an illustration of how nature can threaten mankind, is at the interface of both human and natural vulnerability. The Owhiro Crematorium demonstrates that the role of architecture is to transgress this exclusion of death and the control of natural processes through engagement with a site which embraces decay. An appreciation of the impact of time, environmental consequences and an unstable landscape

plays a pivotal role in how we perceive our mortality. The Owhiro Crematorium transgresses the impossibility of permanence in a society, which creates the illusion of stability surrounding death. This architectural representation addresses threats and issues, which many contemporary Westerners, not excluding architects, consider morbid and prefer to avoid, while providing a civic space, an experiential resource facilitating engagement with a threatening site which invites diverse readings and reactions.

Significance of Research Outcomes

The discussion, analysis and examination of the key texts and precedents demonstrate that it is essential to re-evaluate the function of architecture in its expression of human mortality in response to contemporary, Western denial of death. Architects are increasingly preoccupied with the design of high-tech, multi-functional, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional contained spaces, which promote hygiene, efficiency and status and exclude the importance of ground. Research of current funeral practice in Wellington, in businesses such as the Lychgate Funeral Home, has revealed a need for architecture to re-address the face of death in life. Death was found to have become devoid of meaning and its progressive exclusion from Western society was found to heighten social anxieties, fears and pessimism. In Wellington there is no architectural response to the potential threat of a pandemic, consequently we do not have a memorial facility for victims.

Acceptance of death and the metaphors surrounding it such as the association with dark spaces, ground and decay need to be readdressed by architecture to reveal the natural ecological process in which landscape is the subject. Research has shown that links between body and mind, the absence and the anticipation of death, the architectural programme, flux and hierarchy and emphasis of the landscape all help to reinstate the inclusion of

death as integral part of life. The research has revealed that Owhiro Crematorium should acknowledge and describe the process of cremation, mourning and ritual and absence of the corpse. Research has revealed the importance of emphasising natural ecological elements such as sea, horizon and steep hills to facilitate connection with the regeneration of the earth. Moreover, how a natural environment can be architecturally manipulated to challenge users to re-evaluate their connection within the cosmic world. A dormant structure has the potential to add a different dimension to spatial experience and engagement by framing the sky, emphasising light and horizon to connect users with the phenomenology of place in a confrontation of their mortality.

Application of research to final project design

My objective was to design a crematorium waiting to be used in a pandemic that would challenge an audience to re-evaluate its vulnerability and mortality. The following design elements were applied from my research findings:

•

The Owhiro Crematorium uses framing of the sky from different vertical heights, to bring the sky down into the void spaces.

•

The crematorium reflects changing contemporary global attitudes to death and social threats.

•

The dormancy period of the Owhiro Crematorium will allow individuals to connect with the infinite space of their consciousness while being a catalyst for confrontation and engagement with death.

•

The crematorium emphasises the physical connection between body and ground both through the physical journey through the site and changing spatial sequences in response to the force of the wind and the sea.

•

The vulnerability and volatility of the site have been taken into account in the design which will respond architecturally to erosion.

•

The architectural representation of the dormant challenges the mourner, recreational user and student in their understanding of the environment as a series of vulnerable processes.

•

As a civic and public space, the crematorium incorporates the pathway as part of the fractal design hierarchy to facilitate connection with the

surrounding natural environment. Scale has been employed to create hierarchical linking. •

Fractal geometry derived from the environment, is used in various scales throughout the active parts of the building, ground paving and more refined built elements. The scale of ground paving also responds to the number of people intended to use pathways.

•

Dark space represents opportunities to gain insight and is used for mourners and students to discover their connection to the landscape. This repression of the visible connects with perception and privileged access to truth.

•

A connection between body and mind is created by revealing what is physically supporting the visitor’s bodies. Similar effects and impacts are achieved: through the use of ordering devices, the architectonic arrangement of trees and hedges, clearings, the treatment of light, hinge points and through hierarchy in change of scale.

•

A sense of orientation within the cosmos is emphasised through deliberately fragmented spacing of memorial spaces, entrance, sea platforms and a crematorium. The division of these spaces allows contemplation of specific moments within the whole process of mourning. Furthermore, these built elements will be subordinate in scale and structure to the surrounding hills and ground.

•

This rhythmical use of stairs is used to relate on a human scale to hills surrounding the Owhiro Crematorium.

•

There is a relation between the movement of the human body through time and rhythmic spaces through multiple stairways, numerous staging platforms, which stagger up the hill and stairways leading into the water. The walkways work on outer disorientation and inner reorientation.

•

The programme communicates the passage of time within its dormant position. The active environment will be covered with planting and sand, which will erode with water, sun, wind and eventually be completely submerged.

•

The impact of time on the building’s durability and aesthetic impermanence is reflected through the structure and materials.

•

The interstitial state between high and low tides, emphasizes distance and proximity through revelation and concealment, the flooding of parts of the built environment and detailing how water is returned to the ground.

Further Research

More extensive examination of how surfaces and materials respond to natural decay and heat and how they can be activated would be given priority in further research. It would also be necessary to explore how architecture can communicate activation on many different scales and the different ways that activation can occur. From a sociological perspective, I would further investigate discussion surrounding the relation between the body and exterior environment to examine how we relate, rely on and challenge our exterior environments. The concept of how space can be used to entice discovery and create mystery also begs further exploration. Alternative use of advanced technologies, structures and processes, to make death more transparent in contemporary western society is another potential research area.

Reference list

Andrews, Richard and Bruce, Chris: James Turrell: Sensing Space. Henry Gallery Association. Seattle: 1992

Aries, Philippe: The Hour of Our Death. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1981 Aries, Philippe: Western Attitudes Towards Death. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 1974 Bachelard, Gaston: The Poetics of Space. Massachusetts: Beacon Press. 1969 Bailey, Joe: Pessimism. New York: Routledge Inc. 1988 Barthes, Roland: Incidents. California: University of California Press. 1992 Baudrillard, Jean: Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage Publications. 1993 Constant, Caroline: The Woodland Cemetery: Towards a Spiritual Landscape. Sweden: Byggforlaget. 1994 Kamerman, Jack: Death in the Midst of Life: Social and Cultural Influences on Death, Grief and Mourning. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 1998

Krinke, Rebecca: Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation. New York: Routledge. 2005 Lewis, Diane: Walter Pichler Drawings, Sculptures, Architecture. St. Margarethen: Samson Druck. 2000 Paez, Roger: A Marine Kind of Land. Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme. n. 243 Pallasmaa, Juhani: Encounters: Architectural Essays. Finland: Rakennustieto Oy. 2005 Vidler, Anthony: The Architectural Uncanny. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 1992 Virilio, Paul: Bunker Archeology. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.1994 Virilio, Paul: Open Sky. New York: Verso. 1998 Williams, Kim: Pavements and Hierarchy, 2000. Http://www.nexusjournal.com/Miki-Sali-Yu.html Young, Julian: Heidegger’s Philosophy of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001 Zabalbeascoa, Anatxu: Igualada Cemetery Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos. London: Phaidon Press Ltd. 1996

Bibliography

Books Albertini, Bianca and Bagnoli, Sandro: CARLO SCARPA: Architecture in the Details. Milan: Jaca Book spa. 1988 Ambasz, Emilio: The Architecture of Luis Barragan. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. 1976 Architectural Association: Mary Miss Projects 1966-1987. London: Architectural Association. 1987 Aries, Philippe: Images of Man and Death. New York: Harvard College. 1985 Barragan, Luis: The Quiet Revolution. Switzerland: Barragan Foundation. 2001 Baudrillard, Jean and Nouvel, Jean: The Singular Objects of Architecture. London: University of Minneapolis. 2002 Buck-Morss, Susuan: The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 1989

Etlin, Richard: The Architecture of Death: The Transformation of the Cemetery in Eighteenth-Century Paris. Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 1984 Heathcote, Edwin: Monument Builders. Chichester: Academy Editions. 1999 Houlbrooke, Ralph: Death Ritual and Bereavement. London: Routledge. 1989 Innes, Christopher: Avant Garde Theatre: 1892-1992. New York: Routledge.1993 Leatherbarrow, David: Uncommon Ground. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2000 Libeskind, Daniel: Breaking Ground. New York: Riverhead books. 2004 Mostafavi, Mohsen and Leatherbarrow, David: On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. Cambridge: MIT Press. 1993 Stokes, Adrian: Stones of Rimini. New York: Schocken Books. 1969 Taylor, Jennifer: The Architecture of Fumihiko Maki. Switzerland: Birkhauser. 2003 Tilley, Christopher: A Phenomenology of Landscape. Oxford: Berg Publishers. 1994

Torres, Elias: Zenithal Light. Barcelona: Col.legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya. 2004 Virilio, Paul edited by Derian, James: The Virilio Reader. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. 1998 Wrede, Stuart: The Architecture of Erik Gunnar Asplund. Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1980 Zapatka, Christian: Mary Miss Making Place. New York: Whitney Library of Design. 1997 Internet Permalink, Jimmy: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, May 2005. http://jamestamp.com/2005/05/memorial-to-murdered-jews-of-europe.html Schneider, Peter: The House at the End of Time: Douglas Darden’s Oxygen House. 2001. http://dsc.gc.cuny.edu/part/part7/practice/schnei_print.html

Glossary

Aleatory:

Depending on the throw of a die or on chance, involving random choice by a performer

Ambivalence: Coexistence in one person of the emotional attitudes of love and hate, or other opposite feelings, towards the same object Anthropomorphic: The attribution of human form or personality to a god Antiquity:

1. Great age 2. The far distant past

Apotheosis:

1. A perfect example e.g. It was the apotheosis of elitism, 2. Elevation to the rank of a god

Apparitions:

Like a ghost, appears in a mysterious way

Cadavers:

Dead bodies

Concatenations: Linked together, the forming together Desiccation:

To remove most of the water from

Divested:

1.Strip (clothes), 2. To deprive of role, function or quality

Emaciated:

Extremely thin through illness or lack of food His emaciation is frightening to behold

Eschewing:

Avoid, shun

Exhume:

To dig up

Harbinger:

Signs of truth, announces the coming or approach of another

Homily:

Sermon

Immortal:

1. Not subject to death or decay 2. Famous for all time

Interment:

Burial

Intermittent:

Occurring at intervals

Lassitude:

Physical mental weariness Albert has moments of lassitude when he feels nervous and irritable

Licentious:

Sexually unrestricted, or promiscuous

Lugubrious:

mournful, gloomy

Maudlin:

Weakly sentimental

Martyr:

One who suffers, dies for his beliefs

Moribund:

Dying without force or vitality

Munitions:

Military equipment

Narcotic:

Addictive; numbness, drowsiness

Noisome:

1. (Of smell) offensive 2. Extremely unpleasant, e.g. noisome vapor

Ontology:

The nature of being alive

Ornithology:

Science of birds

Ossuaries:

Where skulls and limbs were artistically arranged

Parallax:

An apparent change in an object’s position due to the change in the observer’s position

Parallelepiped: A solid shape whose six faces are parallelograms Pestilence:

Any deadly epidemic disease

Pious:

1. Religious our devout 2. Insincerely reverent; sanctimonious, adj. piousness

Sepulcher:

1. A buried vault or tomb 2. Gloomy or solemn

Suffused:

Well up and spread over

Throng:

Great number of people (things crowded together) To gather in or fill: Streets thronged with shoppers 3. Everlasting

Vigils:

1. Night time period of staying awake to look after a sick

person Vigilance:

Careful attention

Vigilant:

On the watch for trouble, danger

Verities:

Truths

Virulence:

Poisonous, malignant or violence, malignant, bitter

Vitrification:

Vitrify: convert, or be converted into glass, by heat

Collated Images

Image Bibliography Page Number

Source

Phaidon: Family: Photographers Photograph their Families. London: Phaidon Press Limited. 2005 Murphy, Richard: Carlso Scarpa. London: Phaidon Press Limited. 1993 Riera, Carme: Els Cemetiris de Barcelona: Carme Riera: Isabel Steva. 1981 Etlin, Richard: The Architecture of Death: The Transformation of the Cemetery in Eighteenth-Century Paris .Massachusetts: Massachusettes Institute of Technology. 1984: pg 84, 29, 4

Collated drawings

Collated models

Discussions

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