Designing a memorial place: Continuing care, passage landscapes and future memories

Anna Petersson, Carola Wingren
2011 Mortality  
The design and selection of a memorial stone and gravesite that represent the deceased is a central issue for people bereaved by traffic accidents. This was revealed in an interview survey of recent Swedish roadside memorials and other memorial places. This text will look at this design and selection as expressions of continuing care for the deceased and as a way to find comfort for the bereaved. Materiality, representation and presence will be discussed as crucial parts of the link between the
more » ... living and the dead. Communicative, spatial and physical values are important also in the professional's design of common public memorial places. Of specific interest for this text are two design practice based terms, memory object and passage landscape, which may be used by landscape architects when designing memorial places, such as cemeteries and public monuments. Throughout this text, we will hold memorial places like these as capable of bridging the gap between the space of life and the space of death as well as supporting the regeneration of present memories and the construction of future ones.
doi:10.1080/13576275.2011.536369 fatcat:ncdbjboiljaxbjrt6fd2i4pkam