location: Ankaran
client: Municipality of Ankaran
area: 7085m2
competition: 2019
design period: 2021-2022
implementation period: 2022-2024

project team, competition:
landscape architecture: Ana Kučan, Luka Javornik, Danijel Mohorič, Pia Kante, Katja Mali
architecture: Uroš Rustja, Primož Žitnik, Mina Hiršman, Martina Vitlov, Mateo Zonta

project team, design, implementation:
landscape architecture: Ana Kučan, Luka Javornik, Danijel Mohorič
architecture: Uroš Rustja, Primož Žitnik, Mina Hiršman, Mateo Zonta; wayfinding graphic design: Tomaž Mlinarič

capacity: 110 burial plots for coffins, 246 burial plots for urns, 180 columbarium niches, and a site for scattering the ashes.

photographs: Ana Skobe

a space of memory at the transition between the verticality of the forest and the immensity of the horizon

In 2019, the municipality of Ankaran launched a public competition for a new cemetery, where, at the edge of the settlement, reverent, sacral, and recreational activities would intertwine. At first, designing such a space within the given programme on steep, already excavated, and eroded terrain seemed like an impossible task. Hence, to balance functionality, sustainability, and reverence it was evident that the cemetery needs to be organised in terraces, linked by a serpentine path. At the same time, the location on the edge of a forest, on a ridge above the central part of the settlement, with views opening toward the Gulf of Trieste and Slovenian Istria, naturally offered the genius loci of the Mediterranean: contrasts between light and dark, between the dark verticals of pine trees and the brightness of the sea, the density of the forest, and the boundlessness of the horizon, the dreamy, sun-scorched summer afternoons, and the fierce gusts of the winter burja wind.

At all levels and in every aspect of the cemetery’s design—from spatial organisation and internal hierarchy to the construction and materiality of the farewell building and burial fields—we pursued its anchoring in spatial context, ensuring at the same time a clear construction of space for rituals of farewell, mourning, remembrance, and contemplation of the processes of departure and transition. While it draws from the traditional walled-in Mediterranean cemetery—the city of the dead—the surrounding forest also suggested an interpretation of a sacred grove.

The cemetery is therefore designed around the transition between the verticals of the forest and the immensity of the horizon. It is defined by contrasting relationships between the open and the enclosed, light and dark, the present and the beyond. The spatial organization on the slope was developed together with the transformation of the terrain into five terraces that layer upward along the slope. The ritual path connects the parts with a pronounced dramaturgical effect. It starts in the square in front of the cemetery, passes through the farewell building and winds its way serpentinely between the terraces, containing the burial fields, allowing visitors to experience the cemetery sequentially—by alternating directions of movement and views between the density of the woodland and the openness of the horizon. As they walk through the grave fields, they continuously experience a shift from the forest toward the sea, from darkness to light, while the very dramaturgy of movement constantly anchors them in a broader spatial context.

The introduction of a contemporary cemetery concept and sustainable construction was made difficult by the steepness, the loess (clayish flysch) subsoil, prone to sliding, ensuring manageable slopes for the ceremonial path and embankments between terraces, respecting property boundaries and pre-defined area of intervention. It was ultimately necessary to use concrete retaining walls.

The site’s limitations led to the decision not to enclose the cemetery but to integrate it into a network of public paths and woodland trails. Instead, a wall, an element of traditional cemeteries, delineates each of the grave fields on the terraces. This way, the cemetery honestly expresses its dual nature: on one hand, it is part of a freely accessible forest used for strolling and recreation, and on the other, it is a sequence of enclosed grave fields, arranged in terraces above the farewell building.

The farewall building stands on the first terrace, set against the forest edge. The ceremonial path, via a gentle ramp, leads through the building. There, at the passage, through a water mirror, the building opens toward the depth of the forest and, beyond the passage, into the brightness of the horizon. The water mirror, the zenithal light in the innermost chamber, coupled by the verticals of pine trees and freestanding sections of walls, which all stand for the axis mundi, isolates the farewell space from everyday life and marks the transition into the realm of memory. The design of the grave fields, which follow up the slope, is derived from an interpretation of traditional walled Mediterranean cemeteries. They are enclosed by a low wall, interrupted at the entrance by a higher wall of the columbarium. In addition to niches in the columbarium, the grave fields contain burial plots for coffins and urns, arranged with headstones facing the entrance, with the horizon in the background. The highest grave field, designated for ash scattering, is dual-leveled and enclosed by a green wall—a trimmed hedge. The upper level is defined by a thin retaining wall from which ashes are scattered into apparent infinity. Thus, along the ceremonial path, processes of farewell, mourning, remembrance, and contemplation unfold, but it also serves as a place for gathering and socializing. The carefully orchestrated dramaturgy of architectural and landscapearchitectural elements along the path directs visitors’ views alternately along the terrain, toward the verticals of the forest, and perpendicularly toward the sea—toward the incomprehensible vastness where the horizon merges with the sky.

While the basic concept of spatial organisation and dramaturgical experience as well as the decision that all architectural and landscape elements draw their appearance from the colors and textures of the site was already set in the competition proposal, during design and construction, architects formed the totality of the materiality of the walls of the grave fields, logically matching the materiality of the farewell building. Among the massive exposed concrete walls, reflecting the earthy tones of the flysch layers, the polished concrete columbarium walls stand out, while the light-colored path appears to float above the terrain. Cypress and Aleppo pine emphasize the Mediterranean character, introducing characteristic forms as well as scents into the space. The uniformity of the graves, symbolizing equality in death, is based on the use of a single material—gray Karst stone—which, within allowed dimensions, enables individual variation in expression.

Over the five years from the initial concept to completion, all involved sincerely followed the vision outlined in the award-winning competition proposal. As highlighted by the competition jury, the cemetery’s key strength is its practically inseparable intertwining and interdependence of architectural and landscapearchitectural design. Its fundamental elements—orientation, materiality, and symbolic expression—work together as a unified whole, telling a deeply contextual story. This integration is reinforced by contrasting relationships between open and closed, light and dark, textured and reflective, tectonic and airy, intimate and public, inward-focused and outward-looking, between the present and the beyond. Typologically, materially, symbolically, and sensorially, the cemetery merges the sacred grove with the city of the dead, blending tradition with modernity.

Embedded in a network of public paths, the Ankaran cemetery highlights the ambiguity and incomprehensibility of the transition between two worlds. It weaves them into a unified public space, transforming the traditional notion of the cemeteries: a cemetery as part of the freely accessible, traversable forest transforms a heterotopia into a metaphor of community.