KLUK CEMETERY
The Kluk Cemetery is conceived as a place of pause and contact with the inevitable cycle of life. Here, time is perceived in motion. For this reason, trees are used as a key element that connects the sky and the earth. The design creates a quiet, calm, and intimate environment for remembering loved ones.
Within the park-like part of the cemetery, we place a circular building of the funeral hall. Its abstract form, without a beginning or end, allows a seamless connection between the building and the surrounding landscape.
The circular volume of the funeral hall is placed at the center of the park-like landscape in the expanded part of the cemetery. The building acts as a solitaire and does not divide the space into a “front” and “back” area. Instead, it allows the space to flow freely around it. In this way, the strong linearity of the site is softened, creating a continuous spatial experience.
“Grief is like a long, winding valley: around any bend, an entirely new landscape may open before you.”
ARCHITECTURAL SOLUTION
The funeral hall, together with its related facilities, is designed as a subtle, elegant, and visually light element. The design works with the rounded form of a circular volume, sculpturally articulated by “carved” recesses that form entrances and atria. The shape is complemented by a curved roof, whose highest point lies at the geometric center of the circular plan. This point concentrates the spatial focus—the ceremonial place for the deceased.
Delicacy, lightness, and brightness form the fundamental principles of the design. The proposal creates a new Kluk Cemetery - a calm and open space for farewell. Alongside light plaster and white brick cladding on the façade, natural light becomes a key architectural element. Light enters through a roof skylight and through atria oriented toward both ceremonial halls. The use of atria follows the landscape concept of the site and reinforces the motif of partial concealment within the space.
Intimate corners and the subtle, indirect guidance of space support privacy and intimacy, which we consider essential qualities in cemetery and memorial environments.
LANDSCAPING SOLUTION
The design works with slow movement and guides visitors toward moments of pause beneath the tree canopies. Flowering plants are selected and arranged so that brief physical contact by visitors does not damage the vegetation.
We approach the site with humility. One of the most beautiful Czech cemeteries stands nearby and carries a clear imprint of the era in which it was created. For this reason, we adopt a careful, restrained approach with subtle interventions, rather than shaping the landscape through overt formal gestures. We leave space for gradual discovery, imagination, and contemplation. The concept relies on natural processes and spontaneous growth in cooperation with human care, thereby avoiding the logic of immediate visual effect.
In addition to the ceremonial hall, we conceive the new space as a process of gradual sedimentation. The spatial scenario is designed to remain open and capable of absorbing changes over time.
The proposal is developed on a “greenfield” site without significant reference points such as mature trees or distinctive morphological features. For this reason, the spatial anchoring of the ceremonial hall is developed gradually, in several stages.
VEGETATION
In the first phase, we plant more mature trees, placing them within a variable yet legible grid. Over time, they define different types of spaces—from open areas to more intimate corners. If a tendency toward ritual tree planting emerges, the structure can be complemented with trees of varying ages.
We create a living record of time, where the growth of trees replaces a static marker. Individual parts of the site are connected by a network of paved paths whose edges gradually dissolve into the surrounding landscape. The paths are gently guided between the trees. Later in the season, the system of paved routes is complemented by a variable network of mown paths cut through the meadow.
We propose a composition of trees with a strong individual character. Key criteria include the ability to develop a well-formed trunk, a relatively fast growth rate, and tolerance to the local soil conditions.
Among the proposed tree species are birch, pine, ginkgo, wild cherry, and others. New forms of burial and remembrance also include the ritual planting of trees. The temporal diversity of their growth is understood as a living register of memory.
Depending on individual preferences, the burial place may be marked with a stone plaque bearing a name, or it may remain unmarked. Some contemporary cemeteries identify the burial site only with a QR code.
Kluk Cemetery is one of those places where time visibly accumulates. It carries a sense of apparent timelessness while also functioning as a space for reconciliation and remembrance. Contemporary ways of life increasingly push aside many rituals rooted across generations. The ritual of departure is difficult to integrate into the life of the “eternal consumer.” Every new cemetery therefore opens a dialogue about death and its lack of anchoring in our society.
This does not mean that symbolism disappears from life, nor that the pressures of contemporary times dissolve all traditions. The need for a dedicated place endures, even as the physical manifestation of the burial site gradually weakens and greater subtlety and natural integration come to the forefront.
Project: 2025
Build-up area: 615 m2
Site Area: 9 700 m2
Location: Poděbrady, Central Bohemian Region, Czech republic
Co-author: Ing. Vladimír Sitta
