A SUBLIME FINAL RESTING PLACE IN NATURE’S CATHEDRAL

The design of the physical setting for the rituals surrounding death is a difficult discipline. The result is often an architectural expression with some degree of pathos. The task appears to come more naturally to landscape architecture. It seems that we are better able to make statements about death using plants and landscape spaces than in the medium of brick and mortar.

Archaeologists use traces of a cult of the dead as a marker of human consciousness. A cult of the dead sets us apart from other species, and the development of funeral rites appears to be fundamental to Homo sapiens.

Read my essay at Politiken.dk (in Danish)