Igualada Cemetery

http://picasaweb.google.com/christopher.kitterman/IgualadaCemetery#


Today I took an hour and a half train ride from Barcelona to a small town called Igualada to visit one of my favorite landscape-architecture projects: Carme Pinos and Enric Miralles’ Igualada Cemetery. I had heard that the cemetery is only open two days during the week—Sunday and Monday—and since it was supposed to (and did) rain all day on Monday, I opted for the Sunday visit.

I must begin by saying that architects are the only profession I know of that are willing to travel to the ends of the earth to see a specific project. I have hiked through hills, people's private property, climbed fences, and boarded trains not exactly knowing when to get off just to see a project. This day's trip, although not requiring to climb fences or trespass, is another adventure in the making.

Having only a general knowledge of the cemetery’s location upon arriving in Igualada, I thought I would take a taxi to the site and plan on walking back. No taxis. I found a phone number and figured out how to place a call, but no answer. I asked for assistance with the taxi issue and the response was ‘it is Sunday,’ which I am forced to assume that the response really means no one needs a taxi on Sunday and by the look on the guy’s face, this fact should be obvious. (If you find yourself in Igualada on a Sunday, know where you are going.) I find a map in the station and quickly trace a copy of the route for my walk for reference. I have no idea how far away the site is from the station or how long this might take. The morning in Barcelona had been overcast and cool, but the weather was much different in Igualada with strong sunshine and warm temperatures. Dressed with the protection of jeans and a black shirt, I head out in the direction of my scribbled map without water, as nothing was open to purchase a bottle of water either—another Sunday issue I suppose.

After fifty minutes or so, I arrive at the site. Located outside of the main city in a very industrialized area, the cemetery was built in an abandoned quarry; hence, a dramatic site carved out of the ground over time. As a result, the quarry has exposed the horizontal strata of the surrounding landscape—a reference to time again—not always seen. The first sign of the cemetery is a rusted steel rebar fence and gate (fortunately open). As a fence, the horizontal and vertical rebar members create a regular grid, but above a certain point, the horizontals stop and the verticals extend some three feet above. Without the horizontal connections, each vertical piece bends and deflects referencing the characteristics of the surrounding fauna. Plants and human constructs share the same characteristics.

The first sign of ‘architecture,’ that is something that could be recognizable as a ‘building’ is in fact the only weather sealed enclosure at the site; a small morgue with the appropriate facilities is located off the main drive. Having only one façade, the facility is a concrete structure is embedded into quarry face where the hillside overlaps onto the roof. Hearses and other autos need for services are parked adjacent to and underneath the roof of the complex. Pinos and Miralles uses sculptural cut outs in the roof allowing harsh rays of sunlight to enter into the relatively dark space for vehicles creating a dialog of dark / light and solid / void. These cut outs reinforce the idea that the roof is actually a ground plane by giving the ceiling a thickness not normally used in traditional buildings; at times, concrete trellis like planes angle down from the openings, again, emphasizing the thickness of the roof.

Outside of and adjacent to this facility is the formal entrance to the cemetery itself. A huge angular cor-ten gate of steel tubes announces this entry. From here, one descends down into a passage way carved into the ground exposing walls of shifting concrete blocks—references to the surrounding quarry’s newly exposed cliff faces. These blocks, however, are the burial niches for the deceased. The passageway’s floor is a mixture of concrete, gravel, and randomly placed wooden railway ties that when paired with the shifting faces of the concrete burial niches give the project a sense that water has eroded and exposed each of these faces leaving the random wood pieces and the sculptural characteristics of the walls as evidence left behind.


Pinos and Miralles’ choice of materials becomes very important in discussing the relevance of time’s passage in this project. Steel rebar and cor-ten panels are, I feel, important materials used as both are left intentionally untreated and exposed to the elements to weather appropriately. Hence, the act of rusting becomes a reference to the passage of time—the material is allowed to age naturally. Concrete being the other predominant material used throughout the project is used not only for its obvious structural capacities, but it is these structural capacities of spanning space and retaining earth that are celebrated with concrete’s ability to provide a sense of massiveness.

Ok..enough archi-speak. This is one of my all-time favorite projects. If you ever get the chance to see it, I highly recommend it, and if you ever get a chance to look at the drawings the architects made for this and their other projects, they are pretty spectacular, too. Simple black and white drawings, but it is how they draw and describe the shapes and forms of their projects that have a beautiful complexity to them that allow you to get lost in the drawings.