CEMINTIRI DE MONTJUIC

The true design icon in Barcelona is a cemetery.

Contrary to what you are fed to believe, the most iconic design in Barcelona is not the Barcelona Pavilion or Casa Batllo, both of which have been addressed in these pages. It is not the Miro museum designed by Sert. It may not even be Sagrada Familia.

No, the true place of design pilgrimage in Barcelona should be the Montjuic Cementery, or Cemintiri de Montjuic. And it is not in any of the architectural history tomes.

I only learned of it’s existence during the cab ride from the airport to the city.  There I am, looking blearily out the window after a sleepless flight, and as I look up, I see all of these rectangular forms moving across the face of a very steep hill.  And there was a curious reflectance of light from each of the forms.  So I made a mental note of the rough location in the city that this apparition was in, and then we made our way back there on foot two days later.

This is design at the most elegant, fundamental, and pure.  There are over a million burials in the cemetery.  They are all above ground in long, rectangular forms.  The forms are arranged and connected via a series of walkways and narrow roadways that are cut around the hillside.  The burial forms have a rhythm.  Each of them is about 18 feet tall above the adjacent walking surface.  Stairs are integrated with the forms and the walkways.  Stone, both for the walkways and the forms, gives further unification.

You see Louis Kahn in the forms.  You see Corb.  You see Zumthor.  It is Peter Smithson.  Michael Heizer.  The list of resonances is absolutely endless.

Another design component are the spindly, metal staircases that are scattered about.  They are on wheels, and families move the stairs so that they may attend to their loved one’s glass frontspiece.  We saw various people cleaning the hinged glass panel.  There were fresh flowers.  And people had put small mementos, such as photos, or sayings, from that person’s life.

And the most amazing thing is that the dimensions of the human body is the basic unit of design.  The human body is the building block.  The width of the forms is such that two humans can be inserted end to end.  The height of the forms is based on the stacking of the remains.  The design of the corners of the forms is directly related to the size of the human body, and the requirements for the insertion of the human body into the forms.

Corb had his Modulor which was based on the size and proportions of the human. Christopher Alexander admonishes us to design for the (living) human body.

Well, you want absolutely pure design that is based on the human?  Well here it is.  And despite all of the powerful forms, the composition is formless.  It is styleless.  It is absolutely pure.  It is devoid of any style philopsophy or ism.  And it is not in any of the architectural history books.

Wikipedia does not list any designer.  And that makes it even more fantastic.  The forms simply are what they need to be.  The lyrical movement, the shadows, and the rhythmic forms are simply the result of function.  And this is base function expressed with sheer delight.