Igualada Cemetery or New Cemetery (Catalan: Cementiri Nou) is a cemetery in

Igualada Igualada () is a municipality and capital of Anoia county in Penedès, Catalonia, Spain. It is located on the left bank of the Anoia River and at the western end of the Igualada-Martorell-Barcelona Railway. Igualada is the capital and central ...

, near Barcelona,

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, designed by the architects

Enric Miralles Enric Miralles Moya (12 February 1955 – 3 July 2000) was a Spanish architect from Barcelona. He graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1978. After establishing hi ...

and

Carme Pinós Carme Pinós Desplat (born 1954) is a Spanish architect. Biography Pinós graduated Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) in Barcelona in 1979 and returned to the school in 1981 to study Urbanism. From 1982 on she form ...

after winning an

architectural competition An architectural competition is a type of design competition, in which an entity that intends to build new work, or is just seeking ideas, invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning scheme is usually chosen by an independent panel ...

in 1984. Constructed between 1985 and 1994 as a replacement for the Old Cemetery (Catalan: "Cementiri Vell"), the cemetery became widely regarded as one of the most poetic works of twentieth century Catalan architecture.

, who died in the year 2000 is buried in one of the tombs.Strum p. 13.2

Architectural concept

Miralles and Pinós were concerned, not just to design a cemetery, but to explore poetic ideas regarding the acceptance of the cycle of life to enable a link between the past, the present, and the future.Zabalbeascoa The project is conceived, in part, as an earthwork that transforms the surrounding landscape and also, in part, as a metaphor for the river of life. A processional "street" descends from the entrance, where crossed, rusting, steel poles doubling as gates and likened to the crosses at

Calvary Calvary ( or ) or Golgotha () was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified. Since at least the early medieval period, it has been a destination for pilgrimage. ...

,Quiros, MaKenzie, McMurray - Architecture of time
/ref> proclaim the start of a winding pathway towards the burial area. The route is lined with repeatable concrete

loculi Loculi () is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Nuoro in the Italian region Sardinia, located about northeast of Cagliari and about northeast of Nuoro. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 538 and an area of .All demograph ...

forming retaining walls and the floor of the path has railway sleepers set into its concrete surface.Strum p. 13.2 The intention was to bring the bereaved down into the landscape to a 'city of the dead', an in between place where the dead and the living are brought closer together. The spaces are designed to provoke thoughts and memories.

Critique and influence

Zabalbeascoa sees Miralles's work in general, and the cemetery in particular, as being architecture "which 'naturally' adapts itself to a given site" but cannot be termed simply

organic architecture Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world. This is achieved through design approaches that aim to be sympathetic and well-integrated with a site, so buildings, furn ...

. His work is "more than simply interpreting the programme riefor observing a site's geographical landscape, however attentively, his architecture explores pre-existing traces in the cultural landscape of each project." The cemetery can thus be considered as architecture of the land that involves a humanisation of the brief and appreciation of the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

- that is, the visible, physical land as well as the memories contained within it. This is seen by Zabalbeascoa in contrast to the particular form of

critical regionalism Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. The stylings ...

which prevailed in the Spanish architectural scene of the 1970s which had tended towards a more sentimental or scenographic type of architecture.Zabalbeascoa p. 9 "What sort of cultural landscape is it, in other words, that takes up sides with nature against the monumentalist enterprise of culture, especially when it was to offer visitors an intimation of immortality? ......

t is T, or t, is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is d ...

one that redefines the terms, such that nature is no longer understood as the unproblematic opposite of culture, death no longer the mere antithesis of life."Robinson, Joel D (2005) ''Cultural landscapes in the 21st century'' paper presented to UNESCO
/ref>

Notes

El libro "100 edificios del siglo XX", un proyecto llevado a cabo para The Now Institute, un centro de investigación asociado a la Universidad de Los Ángeles (UCLA) y que en España ha publicado la editorial Gustavo Gili, ha reunido a 50 de los mejores y más renombrados arquitectos del momento para pedirles su selección de las obras más relevantes de la arquitectura moderna. Le mostramos aquí, con un interior y un exterior, que es como hay que ver la arquitectura, las 20 primeras del ranking, y 'colamos' una más, la que ocupa el puesto 49, ya que se trata de la primera obra del listado proyectada por un arquitecto español. Se trata del Cementerio de Igualada de Enric Miralles y Carmen Pinós, en el puesto 49. https://www.expansion.com/directivos/estilo-vida/album/2019/02/28/5c77b171ca4741640f8b4612.html

References

* *

External links

*

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312113742/http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/mellin/arch671/winter2004/student/Condoroussis/condoroussisassign3/PRECEDENTS_files/frame.htm#slide0002.htm , date=2007-03-12

Cemeteries in Catalonia Buildings and structures completed in 1994 Enric Miralles buildings Igualada Buildings and structures in the Province of Barcelona