Echoes in Stone

Arthur Masure

Death is inevitable, yet is something we do our very best to ignore. We are in dire need of remodeled spaces between the threshold of life and death, in which the grieving can think, the dead can rest, and the rest feel alive. Cremation remains the preferred means of bodily disposal in Switzerland, where efficiency and perceived hygiene override sacrality and ritual. Cremation needs a more spatial and honest presence to transcend the homogeneity of normal time; to allow for grieving and to appreciate the passage from life into death. My research led me to stone construction in Switzerland and the numerous quarries that lay unused. Near the village of Murist, in Fribourg, the age-old Carrière de la Molière is embedded into a hillcrest, where a mortuary built of its stone welcomes visitors within. Ingrained in its excavated face as if native to the rock, a sequence of spaces leads the corpse and its loved ones towards the body’s eternal resting place. Deeply entwined in its geological and historical narrative, the project uses on-site resources to address material extraction, embeddedness, and the circular economy. The quarry speaks of the inexorable passage of time, and the structures testify to the cycles of nature and the silent witness of stone to centuries of change. This resonance creates a dialogue between past and present, where the architecture becomes a medium for reflection and reverence; of pondering our place within the continuum of time, memory, and earth.

Files
Énoncé (PDF), Énoncé (PDF), Énoncé (PDF), Énoncé (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF)
LINKS
Team
Professor in charge of the statement:
Bakker, Marco (ENAC IA MANSLAB-CO)
Educational director:
Marco Bakker
Professor:
Anja Fröhlich
EPFL Senior scientist:
Romain Dubuis
Unit:
ENAC-SAR, EAST, MANSLAB
Infos
Year:
2024
Period:
Master, Fall
Category:
Master Project
Topic:  
Architecture
Copyright:
CC BY Licence
Theoretical statement

Spaces of Death: Connecting the Worlds of the Dead and the Living

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