Cemetery Ankaran
CEMETERY ANKARAN
Void Arhitektura
ARCHITECTS
Void Arhitektura
LEAD ARCHITECTS
Uroš Rustja, Primož Žitnik, Mina Hiršman, Mateo Zonta
LEAD TEAM
Uroš Rustja, Primož Žitnik, Mina Hiršman, Mateo Zonta
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Studio Akka
PHOTOGRAPHS
Miran Kambič, Ana Skobe
AREA
7085 m²
YEAR
2024
LOCATION
Ankaran, Slovenia
CATEGORY
Cemetery, Public Architecture
English description provided by the architects.
Cemeteries are sites containing the quiet presence of memories and the constancy of cultural rituals; this combination poignantly defines a sense of bodily transference through atmospheric quietude.
The Ankaran Cemetery embodies these qualities—their significance and their constancy. Furthermore, the architecture of the cemetery is conceived as a liminal transition space between the verticality of the adjacent forest and the limitlessness of the Adriatic horizon to the southwest.
The space of the cemetery is defined by these contrasting relationships and transitions between open and closed, light and dark – between the here and the hereafter.
The cemetery is exceptionally located on the ridge above the central part of Ankaran and above the modernist church of St. Nikolaj along the Oljčna pot (Olive Path), which offers views of the Bay of Trieste and Slovenian Istria.
It is precisely because of its exceptional location that the land was originally planned for commercial programs, but after protests by the local community, it was repurposed as a cemetery.
Ankaran did not have a suitable place to say goodbye to its deceased; therefore, both functionally and symbolically, the new cemetery defines one of the main public spaces for the community.
The forest cemetery shows its dual nature by design. On the one hand, it functions as a freely passable forest park intended for walks and contemplation, and on the other, as a series of marked burial fields—smaller cemeteries—which are aligned in terraces on the slope above the farewell building.
The well-conceived dramaturgy of architectural and landscape elements lined up along the serpentine ritual path directs the visitor's gaze alternately along the terrain into the vertical forest and perpendicularly to the terrain towards the sea, into this unfathomable dimension that merges with the sky.
All architectural elements materially derive from the colors and textures of the location. Amidst the massive, washed concrete walls in the earthy color of the flysch layers, the polished concrete urn walls stand out, while the bright connecting path floats above the terrain.
The Ankaran Cemetery, with its contemporary approach to the cemetery as part of a free passable forest park accessible to all, transforms the traditional idea of the cemetery space as a place of remembrance into a metaphor for community.
