On Tuesday, 11 February 2025, the new Ankaran cemetery will be presented to the public at the Adria Congress Centre in Ankaran. After five years of design and construction, the cemetery, which we designed in close collaboration with architects from the office void arhitektura, will be put into use.

In 2019, the Municipality of Ankaran launched a public competition for a new cemetery that would intertwine devotional, sacred and recreational activities at the edge of the small coastal town. At the beggining of the design process, on the steep terrain and with the prescribed programme in mind, it seemed like an impossible task. While ensuring functionality, sustainability and humanity, the design of the cemetery was guided by the serach for a proper space for the ritual of saying goodbye, mourning and remembrance and the processes of departure and passage. Starting from the site’s given location, its advantages and the constraints it imposed on the programme, the project drew on the genius loci of the Mediterranean.

photo: Ana Skobe