The public funeral home is located within the cemetery enclosure. It opens the surrounding wall with a timeless colonnade which sinks into the darkness of the building, below the natural sloping ground level. Seen from the cemetery, the new building surfaces like a large slab among the graves.

It is built entirely according to the raw order of precast concrete, but the vaults of the presentation rooms. White and soft, these rooms host the deceased and the observance of its relatives. As such, they are the climax of the liturgical promenade, regarding both their use and their particular spatial treatment. The way back from death goes through the colonnade again, this time in the right direction, towards the light.

Team:

Client: Municipality of Damelevières

Architects: GENS

Associates: TERRANERGIE thermal engineering

Photographer: Ludmilla CERVENY