Architecture for the dead

Abstract

'When we come across a mound in the woods, six feet long and three feet wide raised to a pyramidal form by a spade, we become serious and something in us says: someone was buried here. This is architecture' Adolf Loos (1910, p. 84). Funerary architecture, even in its simplest form, is often considered to be the purest of all. It is the only typology whose sole function is that of embodying mankind's emotions most raw: grief. It also has the power to preserve an individual or a group's "memories" through creating an emotional bridge to the Dead Due to this, since the beginning of time, funerary architecture has been built and is present amongst the living to commemorate loved ones. The relationship between funerary architecture and the perception of death has become one of the prime methods of understanding ancient societies. Their monuments, cemeteries and tombs can indeed tell us more about their way of life, than their architecture for the living. However, if one understands the way societies operate today, one would barely find enough of such architecture to study. Death has been stripped away from the city and public view. What is left today, are the few monuments and memorials, sprinkled in cities, acting as silent reminders of what a society should commemorate. Ironically, it's perhaps through this lack of architecture for the Dead in the modern world, that one can truly grasp people's current perception of death. In this research, several architectural characteristics that reflected ancient societies' belief of death are discussed. These characteristics have significantly helped support the reasoning behind today's perception of death. Consequently, this shift in beliefs, in conjunction with the effect of both World Wars, has considerably transformed the language of funerary architecture. This transformation has created several problems for architects and designers to convey successfully such powerful sentiments in politically and emotionally correct forms. For instance, the ways in which communist and former USSR countries tackled the issue of death and memories, resulted in a prime case study. With the direct help of the Georgian architect Vakhtang Davitaia, who dedicated a large part of his professional life to memorials, several conclusions can be drawn regarding the effect of contemporary funerary architecture and societies.