Funeral Building and Cemetery Extension
location
Munich
year
1997 - competition/ 2nd prize
client
Local Authority Riem
size
--
architect
msp Meier-Scupin & Petzet
team
Muck Petzet, Christoph Mayr
landscape architects
Fritz Erhard, Pöcking
The project can be considered an architectural landscape or as the landscaping of architecture. The individual sections of the cemetery’s extension are embedded into the dynamic landscape as a series of shapes surrounded by murals. The processional path of the dead - the transition from life in the human community to dissolution in the light and a new beginning in nature – connects these different shapes. The unity of the landscape elements, the sinking mural and other architectural elements, heightens the impression of entering a separate world remote from life outside. All buildings and structural works are perceived as part of the surrounding mural. As the mural extends outwards, it forms transitional spaces accommodating the progression from the living world to the world of the dead.