Gate to the City of the Dead

Situated on the edge of the old cemetery, away from the entrance, this funeral chapel is reached by the regular pattern of paths that wind between the graves, in a landscape where higher patches of ground alternate with flat areas. The difference in ground heights is elegantly resolved by the creation of a wide, grassed terrace ending with an embankment wall containing a long line of funeral urns. The chapel is long and narrow and slightly arched: a glazed nucleus encapsulated in a subtle masonry that contains it without completely closing it. The two parallel lateral walls in reinforced concrete seem only to stand next to the central block; and on them is impressed an upward movement - rendered still more sensitive by their curved form whereby next to the main facade they do not touch the ground. The slightly convex roof is interrupted on one side to leave a strip open to the light and to a view of the sky.