Concrete. Strong, cold, grey yet neutral and defining. Wanting to create a lasting environment to a home for the dead often has to do with the strong and durable materials available for construction. But what of the container that we are held in. Should that also be a strong and lasting stone. In many cases it is wood, finished with lacquer to be made beautiful. Not all can afford these luxuries though, but that shouldn't mean that the body should just decay in an empty space. No. They should still be given something durable. They should still be given something that a family member will know they are safe in. So plastic. Not particularly beautiful. Not very decorated or elaborate. But strong enough to withstand some weather. Sealed enough to keep the bugs out. And cheap enough for people from all walks of life to afford.
And then there is the added material. The decorations placed by the loved one we leave behind. Flowers. Real and plastic themselves. They are to decorate the plastic so that the reminder of life will forever be with the dead. Flowers. To contradict the concrete and bring color back into a space.
Materiality doesn't just have to do with the buildings structure. They are decisions that should be made based on what people need the space to be for. What do people want to see when they are looking upon the boxes that hold bones. Maybe it is just for there to be a blank canvas in which the grieving can decorate themselves.
the intention was to create a dignified and austere form, reject bronze and marble, avoid a tradition that associates the funerary program to excessive ornamentation. overcome conventions, atavisms, inheritances. generate a true, powerful, resolved image. build a work that is pure structure. that is what its author proposed, in opposition, to the "usual syrupy treatments on the subject"
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