2024-02-18 22:10:23
People are increasingly interested in a more ecological way of life. But few people think about the topic of a sustainable way of leaving this world. Imagine that in the future you won’t be able to visit the final resting places of your deceased in cemeteries as you know them now. You will go by car or public transport outside the city for such a small trip to nature. To reverent nature.
Architect Blanka Solár designed the concept of the cemetery as a landscape element in the surroundings of cities and towns. The memorial biocenter is a vision of the cemetery of the 21st century. It is without graves, urns, wreaths or coffins, but instead in a landscape in which it lives and which has meaning. Such a natural cemetery would help both the landscape and the birds.
“In the Czech Republic, it is a big problem that we have large monocultures, i.e. large fields, and there is not enough motivation to build draws and biocentres. Because even places that do not produce any crops are important for species diversity,” says Blanka Solár, adding that such in the future, the place may also represent an orchard or a meadow full of blue cornflowers.
In the vision of the cemetery for the 21st century, a person would merge with the landscape after death. | Photo: Aktuálně.cz/Archiv Blanka Solár
A natural cemetery, according to her design, could look like it would have a system of walkways or elevated wooden footbridges. There could be observation towers and specific places where people would light a candle. “It would also be possible to build some small shelters there, places to stop, meditate or some symbolic structures, perhaps a symbolic passage between the different biotopes and actually also environments and worlds,” describes the architect.
Ashes or earth
The first thing that comes to mind is that the ashes of the dead would be buried or scattered in such places. Maybe they would be more natural scattering meadows. But the ash alone is no win for many plants. The proposal for the cemeteries of the future takes this into account as well. The solution could be steppe biocenters, where there are plants that require nutrient-poor soil and ash benefits them under certain conditions.
In addition, the cremation process itself is not exactly the most ecological. In the USA and Germany, however, a new method, the so-called terramation, is already being used. It is a process of composting human remains, where the body turns into a cube of soil in 30 days. “Such a form of the remains would really return to nature completely. And not only on the symbolic level, but really to the natural cycle,” notes Blanka Solár.
The first composting facility began operating in 2021 in Seattle. So it’s still a new way of dealing with human remains and it sounds controversial. It will take time for people to get used to this option. And it looks like they will still have quite a bit of time for that in the Czech Republic. In our country, it is not yet possible due to the laws.
Problems of the contemporary funeral industry
Before something new can emerge, the old must be dealt with. Blanka Solár is also a member of the association Last Track, which deals with the indignity and unecological nature of the current burial system and inadequate legislation.
According to the association, for example, handling human remains is undignified. “Few people know that tombstones are often imported from Asia. Or that the urns in which the cremated bodies are placed are small, so the ashes of one person may not fit completely into them.”
A picture from the exhibition Cemetery without graves, a memorial biocentre? | Photo: Aktuálně.cz/Jonathan Antonín Machander
“Managing the so-called surplus ash is a very sensitive topic,” says the architect. He draws attention to the problems of contemporary funerals with the association Poslední stopa, for example, as part of the traveling exhibition Cemetery without graves, pietní biocentrum?, which is now on view until February 17 in the Olga space in Prague’s Strašnice.
Through the stories of the gravedigger, the exhibition draws attention to the current situation, which is often far from people’s idea of eternal rest and peace after death. The vision of new cemeteries is an integral part of the exhibition. Remembrance biocenters fit into the landscape, but this does not mean that there is no marking of the places where the remains are deposited.
“The place of burial could be marked by a flat stone or a planted perennial. There could be barrows, which were already made by the ancient Slavs. So we could go back to that. The grave would look like some kind of elevated formation, and the surviving family could plant just that perennial there ,” Blanka Solár specifies his vision.