Columbarium cum Limen
The ‘Columbarium – The Chamber of Memories’ Competition - Riga Latvia
On one hand, the function of the Columbarium is to provide secure and respectful storage of the remains of the deceased. On the other hand, it offers a space for the living to visit, pay respect, and remember. Considering these functions together, the Columbarium is where a communion between the living and the dead can take place. As such, the Columbarium operates both symbolically and physically as a threshold between life and death.
An expanded set of dichotomies are encountered through the Columbarium’s site and building design. It is the design of these thresholds; the architecture of between inside and outside, earth and sky, above and below, enclosed and open, building and landscape, nature and artifce, fgure and ground, that generate the building’s form. Through the design of these thresholds, the design establishes a symbolic and poetic order, which reinforces the primary dichotomy of life and death. The ‘Columbarium cum Limen’ thus provides a place to give pause. Through this pause, the splendor of the forest, the grandeur of the sky, and indeed, the beauty of life and death, are revealed.
The gentle sloped site is transformed to a grass and wildfower meadow. This is where the Columbarium is quietly situated. Approaching the meadow through an axial route cut through the forest, the Columbarium presents at first as a landscape mound or tumulus. Moving farther along the path, the mound is revealed to be the planted shallow pyramidal roof of the Columbarium pavilion. The pavilion itself is depressed into the meadow slope and contained within richly textured concrete retaining walls. The planted roof foats over the pavilion on slender concrete columns. The retaining walls and the side enclosing walls of the pavilion itself are lined with smooth dolomite stone slab niches, each four units high. The niches house the remains the of deceased. 5oo millimeters wide, they can accommodate a family of four urns. A deep-setengraved stone or inscribed metal cover provides identifcation and protection of the remains. The covers, along with memorial items such as pictures, candles, or fowers that can be placed on the niche’s deep ledge, create rich individual expressions of remembrance. Despite the individual expressions of each niche, cohesion and community is reinforced by the curved confguration of the niches and retaining walls, which makes the change of orientation seamless. In the pavilion, it is understood that the landscape mound above is shaped by the vaulted concrete structure. Sun and the elements spill onto the large stone slabs of the pavilion foor through a large oculus in the roof, the space between the roof structure and the niches, and between the colonnade opening. On the foor, refecting the oculus in size and location, is a black granite disk with engraved commissioned site-specifc poems. With rows of simple stone benches, the interior space offers a calm shelter for memorial gatherings and services. The Columbarium provides opportunity to slow down and simply take pause.
“There is a life and there is a
death, and there are beauty and
melancholy between.”
Albert Camus
“All beginnings are delightful; the
threshold is the place to pause.”
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Credits
Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited Kevin Weiss – Principal, Andrew Ard,
