Contemporary evolutions in funerary architecture

Abstract

This issue of the journal is the collection of the proceedings from the conference “TANEXPLORA 2012 – Contemporary evolutions in funerary  architecture", which took place on March 2012 in Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna. This experience concludes an intensive season of work and research on the “sacred space” of death and dying developed by the department of Architecture of the University of Bologna. The research is situated within the field of sacred spaces and rituals in the contemporary city. In the extremely fragile and fragmented sphere of current spirituality, spaces for grieving and associated rituals have proved to be a most pressing issue in order to understand the fluctuations and the needs of contemporary spirituality, its prevailing architectural manifestation and the spacial variety for its rituals.
Funeral homes and other mourning spaces are in fact a common epi-phenomenon of sacred space, representing the celebration of a passage from life to death which deserves a time (and therefore a space) for expressions of sorrow and affection that connect the proximity of a human dimension with that of a ritualistic one present even in new lay rituals.
Both the affective dimension of mourning and the liturgical and ritual one require a proper spatial development and are therefore an architectural theme.