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, on a steep, already excavated and eroded terrain.

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 town, with views over the Gulf of Trieste and Istria, naturally offered the genius loci of the Mediterranean: contrasts between light and dark, between the density of the forest and the boundlessness of the horizon, the dreamy, sun-scorched summer afternoons and the fierce gusts of the winter storm 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—its setting in the forest also suggests an interpretation of the sacred grove.

The cemetery is therefore designed around the transition between the verticals of the trees and the horizontality of the horizon. It is defined by contrasting relationships between the open and the enclosed, light and shadow, 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 with the carefully orchestrated dramaturgy of architectural and landscapearchitectural elements 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 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 between the walls of the burial fields, they bodily feel the turns, thus continuously experiencing 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 implementation of a contemporary cemetery concept and sustainable construction was made difficult by the steepness, the loess (clayish flysch) subsoil, prone to sliding, by ensuring the stability and manageable slopes for the embankments between terraces and of the ceremonial path while respecting property boundaries and meeting the demands of the brief. It was necessary to use concrete retaining walls.

But it was precisely the constraints of the site which led to the decision not to enclose the whole cemetery but to integrate it into a network of public paths and woodland trails by only enclosing the burial fields. Thence the limitations have been converted into potential: the cemetery thus consists of a series of smaller enclosed graveyards which together give rhythm to the ascent up the slope, crucial for the farewell ritual. The walls thus allow the cemetery to be integrated into the system of public green spaces and paths, while at the same time provide for the intimacy of remembrance and farewell.

The farewall building stands on the first terrace, set against the forest edge. The ceremonial path, 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 climb ends with an ash scattering field, from where the most beautiful view opens up. This field is also bounded by a wall, but this time with a green one. Hence the space is still tectonic, but softer. It’s dual level clearly delineate the boundary from which the ash is scattered into seeming infinity—toward the incomprehensible vastness where the horizon merges with the sky.

It will take a few years for the forest to grow. Only when the pine trees pierce the horizon with their trunks and their canopies form a green roof will the forest—along the concrete walls and karst stone—become the main vehicle of reverence.

Embedded in a network of public paths, the Ankaran cemetery highlights the ambiguity and incomprehensibility of the transition between the two worlds. It weaves them into a unified public space, transforming the traditional notion of the cemeteries: as part of the freely accessible, traversable forest transforms a heterotopia into a metaphor of community. . Its fundamental elements—orientation, materiality, and symbolic expression—work together as a unified whole, telling a deeply contextual story.

• Other credits:
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
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
Photographs: Ana Skobe

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