A Última Cidade

Abstract

I want, when I die, to be buried Close to the naïve and meek Ocean, Shall it pray at midnight on a hurt voice The final prayers of my rest ... 1 Architecture for the absence. An eternal farewell, bounded by several memories. Houses of the ethereal, with spaces for the faithful departed and for the living. Connection between reality and alienation, transcendence. Paths of meditation and recollection, filled with symbolism and devotion, inducing us relentlessly toward the imposed celestial ending: the confrontation with death. The relationship between man and the cessation of life is the sum expression of funerary architecture. A drawing inspired by death, its rituals and secrets, understood and conceived as an intimate space capable of soothing the healing process of a sore soul, by perpetuating memories that will build the city itself. Currently, we witness the desecration of our culture, mirrored in the process of funerary architecture. The attempt to hide the impending explosion of pain and suffering due to the remembrance of a sudden loss tries to convert these spaces into neutral locations, minimizing the emotional shock - a comprehensive rejection of that painful process. As if death itself would disappear by this procedure of building spaces that reveal the effort to alienate the consciousness when facing death; the attempt to distance the impact felt by this confrontation. Architecture blurs death by distracting the living from the harsh reality of passing away. It smooths the difficulty related to the ceremonial rituals that preceed the exumation.2 In short, it is all about an emotional geometry. Modern men wished to omit the presence of death in their daily lives, understanding it as a transgression and allying it to oblivion. Nowadays we witness the growing emergence of new mortuary complexes that present themselves as a response to this ultimatum. We found them in a rather quiet position towards the inaccessible extremism of purging death away from our daily lives: they define aseptic and precise lines, recurring to the accuracy of statements regarding the function. However, they are endowed with great symbolic expression; by dignifying the space of significance without abandoning the omnipresence of death nor admitting it across its stern expression. A balanced equilibrium allows 5 1 ESPANCA, Florbela. A minha morte in Poesia Completa de Florbela Espanca, Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2002, p.55. (free translation) 2 MASSAD, Fredy; YESTER, Alicia Guerrero. Cemitérios contemporâneos. Entre a vida e a morte. Revista on-line Vitruvius- Arquitextos, índice 060.02. Maio, 2005. (free translation) A ÚLTIMA CIDADE 6 7 us to live with this, enabling us to quietly visit those spaces, hoping that its neutral development contributes to the construction of our own memories. In the end, death contributes to this subject with a double faceted presence, a paradox that comes down to the survivors by providing a dualistic reading: the hostility of death is exercised not against the deceased, to whom a better luck is given, but against those who mourn; not annihilating them, but letting them live, social decapitated body, beings deprived of support and direction. This ambivalence reflects a deep spiritual division, between two chronologically distinct yet discreet attitudes: on one hand, the initial shock of mourning, during which death can only be stepmother. On the other, it appears as a retreat imposing religious reflection, inducing ourselves to extract a positive aspect - albeit limited to a single recipient - of a situation and comparing (within the limits and under certain strict conditions) death to a caring mother.3 3 BRAET, Herman; VERBEKE, Werner. A Morte na Idade Média. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1996, p.254. (free translation)