Cemetery chapel
CLIENT
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna
SERVICES
Preliminary project
YEAR
2013
PLACE
Sarajevo municipality „Briješće“, Bosnia & Herzegovina
| As the most important moment in our life is precisely the moment of birth and death. These are the moments that will determine our destiny for eternity. We will either be saved or cursed. Either we will be with God forever or we will be lost forever. Thus, the chapel in the cemetery should help architecturally, symbolically and spatially to make it easier to accept the departure of loved ones, and at the same time to try to celebrate the meeting of the deceased with God. The chapel was designed as a one-room building with an irregular rounded shape. The shape of the space is designed to embrace us in the most difficult moments. Just as the mother’s womb preserves the fetus in the womb, so the rounded shape of the base on which the chapel rises symbolically mimics the position of the newborn at birth. The walls are interspersed with elongated windows through which the views open to the outside, and light is allowed to enter the interior.
The four window openings in the “nave” of the chapel are designed in glass brick, and a glass brick cross is planted on the wall in the front of the presbytery. In this way, the chapel is illuminated by light rays that are refracted on the rounded walls. In addition to the mentioned openings, 5 stained glass windows were designed to symbolize water, earth, air, sun, and the resurrection of Jesus. The roof surface is divided into two areas, so that its position imitates the dissolved wings of a pigeon in flight, and symbolizes the release of the spirit and going to heaven. Like the dove itself, it symbolizes the spirit of life, the soul, the transition from one world to another. The cross above the entrance door to the chapel is designed from four intertwined Christian symbols IHTIS. The entrance door of the chapel is designed, in steel curved rods that imitate twigs, and half of these branches are shielded with solid steel strips. The background is closed with a glass wall.
