Gozzano Cemetery Extension

View of the garden to scatter ashes and the pond besides it.

Project Details

• Project Name: The Gozzano Cemetery Extension
• Client: Comune di Gozzano
• Project Type: Architectural and Landscape Design
• Principal Designer: Nicoletta Oddera
• Design Team: Fulvio Quattroccolo, Anna Lia Quattroccolo
• Date of commencement of project: June 2005
• Date of completion of project: June 2007
• Location of site: Gozzano, Novara, Italy
• Site Area: 5.000 square meters
• Cost of Execution: 1,700,000 Euros

View towards the west end of the extension.

The Project

The project aims at giving the extension to the cemetery the shape of a garden. As a result, both natural and constructed elements are given equal value in the architectural composition. The garden is envisioned as the meeting point of the human and divine worlds and hence a dedicated space for meditation, contemplation and memory.

View of the parterre.

The new buildings relate to the south side of the existing cemetery via a large parterre which connects all paths. The green landscape dominates the composition here. To the west, near the new entrance, an evenly spaced cluster of cupressus sempervirens symbolically recalls the spiritual presence on the site. A single large deciduous tree -- a fraxinus excelsior -- has been placed behind the ossuary. The choice of this particular tree is due to its symbolic value in the oldest European cultures.

The clarity of plan is largely to avoid long and sombre corridors for burial niches, designing instead a sequence of "rooms" where niches are grouped in small numbers and better privacy and concentration are promoted.

The place where ashes are scattered is designed as a church open to the sky. The north aisle here forms terraces, held by local-stone low walls, on which twelve small maples are placed in an irregular row, while the south aisle is a covered corridor where a series of regular openings creates a tight rhythm, sheltering small cells for the cinerary urns.

Overall view of the model of the extension to the cemetery.

The 'central nave' is divided into five squares, four of which are adorned with decorative undershrubs at the base of which ashes can be scattered. The nave ends to the west with a sheet of water which fleetingly reflects the surroundings and the changes to it.

The pond, located next to the new entrance, sets itself as a beginning and an end at the same time, emphasising the cyclical nature of life and death -- a theme reflected in many aspects of the project, particularly the vegetation that signals the alternation of the seasons.

Credits

• Text: Courtesy of the architect
• Computer Rendered Images by Fulvio Quattroccolo, Courtesy of the architect
• Compiled and edited by Mitesh Saraf