Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history

Ivona Dlábiková, Martina Peřinková, Jan Kovář

doi:10.37190/arc220203

Abstract

Cremation was a common way of burying in old cultures, for example in Ancient Greece, Celts, Ancient Rome, Vikings and many other cultures around the world. In Europe burial practices changed since the Christian culture ruled the society, because it did not support this kind of burials and later Charles the Great prohibited the cremation under pain of death. This ban lasted in Europe almost thousand years. The church started to tolerate the cremation as a way of burying only in 1963. In spite of the church’s opinion, the societies built the first crematoriums in Europe from 1874. But these buildings for cremation have nothing to do with the old cremation rituals when the body was burnt down on a big amount of wood which lasted several hours. The main part of new buildings are furnaces and chimneys where the body is burnt after around one hour. This old – new way of burying brought a new type of buildings and the discussion as to the style and symbolism of this architecture was huge. In the crematorium building a new type of space emerged, namely a mourning hall. Later this space was separated from a crematorium and created an independent unit. Mourning halls are now a common type of architecture in Europe and exist side by side with churches, where the religious funerals are generally held. In other parts of the world the old types of ritual cremation with wood are preserved until today, however, the modern cremation became more suitable in these countries as well. The aim of the article was to clearly describe circumstances in which the spaces for modern cremation were built. The main method was studying styles of the first crematorium buildings and literature for this topic. These structures would never have been built without an effort of few personalities, who, despite the general Christian opinion, succeeded in establishing the first crematoriums.

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Ivona Dlábiková*, Martina Peřinková**, Jan Kovář***

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls.

Modern cremation history

Introduction

Crematoria and mourning halls were part of architecture

in cities for many decades in some European countries.

This work focused on their evolution within a relatively

short time, from 1876. The creation of these buildings is

closely related to religion and laws in each country, so

many aspects had to be considered before their realisa-

tion. The work was focused on Europe but it also deals

with some world countries, which developed this kind of

buildings as well. Crematoriums and mourning halls were

often the last space where family or the bereaved spent

time with the dead, hence to make this space satisfactori-

ly convenient and beautiful, a discussion of its historical

background and further direction is needed. These build-

ings for mainly secular funerals were often compared to

religious funerals in churches. The main question was

whether a mourning hall could replace the sacral space

of the church and bring the same ritual moment during

funeral. The paper considered big political, historical and

religious forces which created these buildings for modern

cremation that have nothing to do with an old cremation

ritual of antic nations any more.

State of the research

The research methods were theoretical with using liter-

ature and study of oorplans of crematoriums and mourn-

ing halls. Basically, the work focused on clarifying the

process of the establishment of the rst crematoria and

their architectural styles, which was the topic of many de-

bates in the past.

Funerary halls were established along with the rst cre-

matoria. In the event of cremation, the funerary hall re-

placed the space for the ritual which took place in a church

prior to a burial. Thus, a secular ceremony took place in

the funerary hall as another option for a church funeral.

At rst, funerary halls were part of a crematorium, and it

was only later that they were distanced, sometimes form-

ing a separate building. To understand the meaning and

operation of a funerary hall, it is essential to begin with

the rst crematoria. The ancient temple, the single-nave

basilica and the central sacral buildings were the inspira-

tion for architects to design the rst European crematoria.

In 1874, a law was passed in Italy that was the rst in the

Christian world to allow the dead to be cremated. Two

years later, in 1876, the rst European crematorium was

built in Milan in Italy (Fig. 1). The rst cremation here us-

ing cremation furnaces took place on the 22

of January

1876. The complexities of social changes that preceded

the construction of the rst crematorium were described

in the Encyclopedia of Cremation [1]. In the end, howev-

er, it was the eorts of one man, Albert Keller, who invest-

ed into cremation machine research to be the rst person

to be cremated in a modern manner. This is documented

by the inscription above the entrance “Tempio Crematorio

per volontà del nobile Alberto Keller, eretto e donato alla

città di Milano” [Cremation Temple by the will of noble

Albert Keller, built and donated to the city of Milan].

The author of the neo-Greek project of the Milan tem-

ple was architect Carlo Maciachini. The core of the build-

ing was not the funerary hall, but the crematorium. The

crematorium was extended with a waiting room on the

right and a funeral parlour on the left. The ceremonial hall

DOI: 10.37190/arc220203

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

* ORCID: 0000-0001-6068-2988. Faculty of Civil Enineering,

Mining University – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic,

e-mail: ivona.dlabikova@gmail.com

** ORCID: 0000-0002-1005-899X. Faculty of Civil Enineering,

Mining University – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.

*** Faculty of Civil Enineering, Mining University – Technical

University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.

28 Ivona Dlábiková, Martina Peřinková, Jan Kovář

here instead had an open columnar space reminiscent of

the peristyle of ancient Greek temples. Here, the mourners

together with the bereaved relatives personally watched

the ritual of cremation of the con with the remains of the

deceased. However, this spatial design of the crematorium

did not meet with a favourable reception from the pub-

lic. Cremation was not accepted by people in general, be-

cause at that time, the church still considered inhumation

the only suitable method. The Doric colonnade, distyle

temple-front, urns and blazing ames of the crematorium

carried meanings that conveyed a sense of timelessness,

permanence and immortality, and perhaps a reference to

cremation as an antient funerary rite [2, p. 135]. Neoclas-

sical designs of Italian crematoria in monumental ceme-

teries continued in the cities of Turin, Pisa, Florence and

Siena, and Egyptian designs were no exception, such as

the stepped pyramid roof of the crematorium in Rome’s

Verano Cemetery. Historicism and camouage were gen-

erally intended to promote cremation, and to encourage

its adoption, rather than to underline its origins within

radical politics and progressive social circles. Eorts to

mask furnaces and chimneys indicated an awareness of

cultural and emotional sensitivities [2, p. 137].

The late 19

century in Italy also gave rise to works that

were evidently innovative. For example, the crematorium

in Lodi, the second crematorium in Italy built in 1977,

where the author of the design, Professor Paolo Gorini,

looking for the cheapest way of cremation and talking

about cremation as an ancient method of burial, placed

the chimney just behind the classicist entrance, thus em-

phasising it. Crematoria were located in monumental

memorial cemeteries (in Italian Cimitero Monumentale),

which were characterised by a regular network of alleys,

and the crematorium formed a part of the cemetery. In the

same year as the rst European crematorium, a crematori-

um was built in the United States. It was built by Francis

Julius LeMoyne on his own land, in a location known as

Gallow’s Hill. It was a simple house with a gabled roof,

without any classicist treatment. Its utilitarian function

was also described by Dr. LeMoyne, who performed cre-

mations to prevent the contamination of drinking water.

The designers of other European crematoria then went

on to select the concept of separating the funerary hall

from the technical section. An example of this is the

rst German crematorium, which opened in 1878 in the

Thuringian city of Gotha (Fig. 2). This classicist crema-

torium and funerary hall (in German Die Trauerhalle)

was designed by architect Julius Bertuch and engineer

Carl Heinrich Stier. The funerary hall at that time oered

a similar mourning ritual to that currently practised. The

con with the deceased was placed on a catafalque and

passed to the basement at the conclusion of the ceremo-

ny. The con and remains of the deceased passed to the

gas cremation furnace on rails. The cremation took a little

over an hour. The urn with the ashes then passed up via

an elevator to the level of the funerary hall and was thus

available almost instantly. The funerary hall underwent re-

furbishment, which did not preserve its original form. The

new funeral halls were erected in communal cemeteries,

hence were not always constructed as exclusively secular

spaces: the building at the Markkleeberg cemetery was

labelled “morgue, ceremonial hall (“cemetery chapel”)”

and the plans for Holzhausen included a preparation room

for the “funeral orator/minister”. Especially in villages

where cemeteries were near the church or where there

was a cemetery chapel, secular (non-religious) funerals

did not always have a separate room. In the 1960s, there

were moments when the whole secular funeral ceremony,

including the funeral speech, had to take place outside, in

the cemetery [3, p. 151]. In the following years, other cre-

matoria were opened in the German cities of Heidelberg

(1891), Hamburg (1896) and Oenbach am Main (1899).

Fig. 1. The first Cremation Temple (Tempio crematorio) in Milan.

The mourning hall is not a part of the building, only a room where people observe the cremation. Above the entrance to the furnaces

is the inscription “Pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris” (You are dust, and you shall turn to dust again). The original building without later

additions on both sides resembles the Mycenaean megaron, with a façade with a tympanum and two columns, although the layout is different

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

Il. 1. Pierwsza Świątynia Kremacji (Tempio crematorio) w Mediolanie.

Sala żałobna nie jest częścią budynku, a jedynie pomieszczeniem, w którym ludzie obserwują kremację. Nad wejściem do pieców

widnieje napis „Pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris” (Jesteś prochem i w proch się obrócisz). Pierwotny budynek bez późniejszych dobudówek

z obu stron przypomina mykeński megaron, z fasadą z tympanonem i dwiema kolumnami, choć układ jest inny

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history 29

Sir Henry Thompson, president of the Cremation Society,

just as the law came out and became the focus of atten-

tion of cremation advocates. It was designed by Sir Ernest

George and Alfred Bowman Yeates, one of the leading

late Victorian architectural partnerships [4]. The building

has two chapels, an arcaded gallery, a columbarium, and

so on. The impression it created is rather reminiscent of

a church monastery than a secular building of a cremato-

rium. The interior of the western chapel is designed with

a choir and an organ above the entrance, continues with

one nave illuminated by a side light and nishes with

a raised podium. At the end of the podium is an altar with

a Christian cross. A window is placed axially above it and

asymmetrically. Perpendicular to the side wall of the nave

is a catafalque, and the con may pass from it through

a door into the actual crematorium. Thus, the religious

motif of the chapel is strongly dominant, with the altar at

the centre and the con by the side. On the other hand,

in terms of the design, it also had operational reasons for

In England, the rst crematorium was established in

Woking after 1878, designed by Italian architect, Paolo

Go rini, in the neo-Gothic style (Fig. 3). Here, in 1885, cre -

mation ocially took place for the rst time.

Other crematoria followed in Manchester (1892),

Glasgow (1895), Liverpool (1896) and Darlington (1901),

but the most signicant was the opening of the rst mu-

nicipal crematorium in Kingston-upon-Hull (1901). It was

not until the following year, in 1902, after the construc-

tion of the six above buildings, that the Parliament passed

a law To govern the burial of human remains and to allow

funeral authorities to establish crematoria [4]. It is im-

portant to realise that this law at the time aected not only

Britain itself (then the British Empire) but also its colonies

outside Europe: in Asia it was India, Hong Kong, Malay-

sia and Iraq, in Africa it was Egypt, Sudan and others, and

its main dominions at that time were Canada, Australia

and New Zealand. The construction of the crematorium

in Golders Green in London began under the auspices of

Fig. 2. Crematorium Gotha with the Mourning hall – the first crematorium in Germany

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

Il. 2. Krematorium Gotha z salą żałobną – pierwsze krematorium w Niemczech

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

Fig. 3. Woking Crematorium with the Funerary Hall – the first crematorium in Britain

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

Il. 3. Krematorium Woking z salą pogrzebową – pierwsze krematorium w Wielkiej Brytanii

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

30 Ivona Dlábiková, Martina Peřinková, Jan Kovář

tion furnace to use was the centre of attention. European

industry was in competition: talented Italian investors with

Germans, while the French rather remained as spectators

[5, p. 66]. After a tour of the Italian furnaces from Gorini

and Poma-Venini and the German Siemens furnaces, ac-

cording to Pierre Santa and Max de Nansouta in 1881, the

German equipment was the most perfect. At rst, Gorini’s

furnace had been installed in the Père-Lachaise cemetery,

later replaced with a Siemens furnace. Meanwhile, crema-

tion had become modern thanks to Honoré de Balzac; in

his work Ferragus (written in 1833), he applied for per-

mission to cremate his dead ancée. Although France ini-

tiated the renewal of the cremation ritual, and in a manner,

had ideas ahead of the times, we still encountered a certain

disregard for this type of funeral in literature at the end of

the 20

century. As noted by Louis Pasteur: specialists in

the history of death are content with a paragraph or a page,

Phillipe Aries in Man Before Death (1985) did not dedicate

more than a few lines to this subject, Louis-Vincent Thom-

as in Death and Power (1978) did not address cremation

at all, and if so, only very marginally. Only Jacquelline

Laloutte described some of the ceremonies accompanying

cremation at the turn of the century in France [5]. Similar-

ly, cremation was not favoured by the press, Davies noted

that when John Edwards, President of the Consultative

Assembly for the European Council, died, the event re-

ceived large coverage in the French press, but the fact that

he was cremated was not even mentioned [6]. It was not

until the Catholic Church changed its attitude to cremation,

which it authorised in 1963, that the situation slowly began

to change. The Vatican cited the urban aspect as the rea-

son to allow cremation: to preserve the land for the living.

François Truaut’s lm of 1961, Jules and Jim, is the

rst to show the process of the cremation ceremony to

the public, when Jules’ two friends died: family partici-

pation in the funerary hall, placement of the casket into

the furnace, then placement of the ashes into the urn and

its storage in the columbarium [5]. From among the new

achieving the shortest path from the hall to the technolog-

ical section. In the second Eastern Chapel, the catafalque

is located axially at the end of the nave, i.e. in the centre,

the usual site of a Christian altar.

Ten years after the rst crematorium had been built in

Germany, the rst French crematorium with the Salle de la

coupole (1889) funerary hall was established in the Père-

Lachaise cemetery in France (Fig. 4). The crematorium

was designed by architect Jean-Camille Fromigé for the

eastern part of the cemetery near one of the gates. It must

be said, however, that the idea of modern-day cremation

had been present in French society long before this cre-

matorium was built, even earlier than in other countries.

In 1885, the Italian doctor Pini wrote: It was in France,

where fame was restored, before all other nations, where

the honours of cremation were renewed [5, p. 63]. In 1765,

a decree was issued in Paris banning burial of the dead in

the church and inside the city (in the then urbanised part

of the city), preceded by calls on the dangers of inhuma-

tion by Dr. Haugenot of Montpellier. Since the triumph

of Christianity, the rst cremation in Europe took place

in this French city in 1794, of doctor Bouvais de Preau,

a conventional mountain doctor who died in the service of

his homeland. A non-religious funeral was held in Mont-

pellier, with one exception to a usual funeral, that being

the presence of a pyre. The cremation lasted several hours

and a part of the night [5, p. 64]. Another solitary case of

cremation, almost a hundred years before the opening of

the rst crematorium, took place in 1797, at the request of

General Marceau.

In addition to the need to adapt to the police and hy-

giene legislation, the lack of wood was a problem for the

further development of cremation. In 1796, Cambry sub-

mitted a project to the Central Administration for the De-

partment of Siena recommending “not to use wood, which

has become so scarce” and calling on scientists to invent

“a furnace engineered to utilise modern chemistry”. In the

half of the 19

century, the question of which crema-

Fig. 4. Crematorium with the funerary hall Salle de la coupole in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris – the first crematorium in France

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

Il. 4. Krematorium z salą pogrzebową Salle de la coupole na cmentarzu Père-Lachaise w Paryżu – pierwsze krematorium we Francji

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history 31

inhabitants did not have cemetery plots until the end of

the fteenth or early sixteenth century. Temple cemeteries

largely developed after the Onin War (1466–1477), when

Buddhist care for the dead became more widespread. While

previously ordinary citizens had wanted to build commu-

nal monuments since the seventeenth century, monuments

dedicated to individuals or couples began to appear. With

the temple registration system (terauke seido) from the

year 1640, the relationship between temples and ordinary

citizens was consolidated in the “parish” system (danka

seido), which required all Japanese families to register in

local temples. Although this policy was pursued to thwart

the perceived threat of Christianity, it soon transformed

temples and priests into state authorities, giving them un-

due control over the lives of their parishioners to register

them as non-Christians. Parishioners also had to attend

the Temple of Death throughout the year and accompany

the ancestral rites, also Bon, the equinoxes and the an-

niversary of Buddha’s death [9, p. 90]. He further states

that it was almost impossible to move to another temple,

and to hold memorial or funeral services elsewhere was

strictly forbidden. In 1871, registration in a temple was

ocially cancelled, but the connection between Japanese

families and local temples was now rmly established.

Despite attempts by the state to promote Shinto funerals

as part of a larger pro-Shinto movement (which does not

opt for cremation but inhumation), the public was not eas-

ily persuaded. “This was most clearly indicated by the

ban on cremation in 1873 in an attempt to support Shinto

burials. The ban lasted only two years” [9, p. 95]. Ten

years later, the government decided that anyone who died

of a contagious disease must be cremated and promoted

cremation as a form of purication. Mori Kenji points out

that incorporation of the “habit of succession” ensures

an ideal housekeeping system, which has survived since

the registration of families in temples and is also strongly

rooted in current law (Clause 897 – Inheritance of Ritual/

Religious Benets). However, this resulted in the inabil-

ity of those without ospring to purchase a burial place

and the diculty in handing over graves within families

that only had daughters. When a grave is bought in Japan,

what actually is the subject of the transaction, is the right

to use the land for eternity, and the system presupposes the

concept of a continuous, direct origin, a family existing

in one place, which is still enshrined in civil law to this

day. The Meiji Civil Code denes a grave as the central

site of family ritual. The ritual involves several stages,

i.e. cremation remains are placed in an urn and buried in

the family tomb 49 days after death, when the traditional

Buddhist mourning period ends. The individual memorial

service provides for the 33

, 50

and even 100

anniver-

sary of death.

Although the greatest eorts to promote cremation and

the establishment of various associations took place in the

century in Europe and around the world, the rst in-

ternational organisation was established as recently as in

the 20

century. The example of a separated mourning

hall from this time was in Westhausen, Germany (Fig. 5).

In 1936, delegates from Great Britain, Denmark, France,

the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, Romania,

type of architecture of funerary halls, the building in

Père-Lachaise looks most of all like what might be called

a secular space. Under the massive dome is an area for

the bereaved, and at its end is an arched apse with lights

that resemble torches at the sides, neoclassical columns

and a massive staircase that protrudes from the seating

area high and deep into the apse. It could be said that the

staircase represents the pyre where the body will be incin-

erated, as indicated by the dark blue interior of the apse,

resembling the sky.

States such as Italy, Germany and France are presented

here separately, but they were well informed about the

cremation movement, the production of new cremation

machines, new crematoria and funerary halls. This took

place during international medical congresses and exhi-

bi tions, where at rst only new ideas and then devices

were presented. An exhibition was held in Vienna in 1873,

where Professor Brunetti presented his improved machine.

One of the most important events in Florence in 1869 was

the International Congress of Medical Science, the main

topic being the replacement of traditional burial by other

methods for reasons of hygiene, the replacement of inhu-

mation with cremation. A year after the congress in Flor-

ence, Prince Rajah Maharaja of India, who was staying

there, died and was cremated on a pyre, which took almost

seven hours, after which the ashes were dispersed into the

air. This act provoked much discussion in Italy and many

other cases of important people wanting to be cremated

after death. It stimulated the development of the rst mod-

ern cremation facilities [6]. The Vienna Exhibition in 1873

introduced Brunetti’s new furnace apparatus to all the in-

uential gures in Europe. Later, other types were invent-

ed by Gorini, Venini in Italy and Siemens in Germany.

However, the cremation movement was far from being

just a European aair. In the same year as the rst Europe-

an crematorium was opened in Milan, the crematorium in

the United States, near Washington (1876), independently

also began to operate. Both events were related to the in-

troduction of new health laws. However, the world had

been connected to European countries through large col-

onies, which at the time belonged to Spain, Portugal and

the Netherlands, but also Italy, Great Britain, France and

Germany. It is therefore not surprising that a modern cre-

matorium was established in Hong Kong, a former British

colony, as early as in 1899. Especially in Asian countries,

Buddhism had been a great inuence in the past. The

burning of the deceased in a funeral pyre was a Buddhist

tradition, of course known also in the Middle Ages, when

cremation was banned under pain of death in much of

Europe by Charlemagne. Later, the Chinese rulers of the

Ming Dynasty (14

to 17

centuries) rejected cremation,

and Confucius’ philosophy viewed cremation as an act

of cruelty [6]. Concerning medieval Buddhist inuence,

however, this referred to the ritual of burning, not today’s

technical method assisted with furnace technology.

Buddhism has also signicantly inuenced Japan, where

cremations currently account for almost 100% of all funer-

als, holding the world primacy [7]. It is the strong tradition,

more than the faith, that maintains this cremation

culture

[8]. According to Hashizume Shinya, most of the city’s

32 Ivona Dlábiková, Martina Peřinková, Jan Kovář

Sweden, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia met in Prague

and agreed on a “New Congress” to be held in London with

the objective of establishing the International Cremation

Federation. The commission, which was put together to

plan the event, was composed of President F. Mencl from

Czechoslovakia and Vice Presidents Prof. Dr. H. Zeiss

from Germany and M. Henri Ferre from France. A year

later, the objective was achieved, and the federation met

at a congress in London [1].

Some countries built their rst crematoriums only af-

ter the recognition of cremation by the Roman Catholic

Church in 1963 [10], which is what occurred in Hungary

(1967) and Slovakia (1968). Other countries inuenced

by the events of World War II rejected cremation since

many people died in this way during the Holocaust. The

question of a crematorium was reopened only much later,

and in Ukraine, as late as in the sixties. The rst crema-

torium was built in 1975 by architect Abraham Miletský;

the sculptural brutalist building with huge entrances and

a mysterious hall is now a tourist destination (Fig. 6). It

represents quality architecture associated with its function;

the hall closes in on itself, the mysterious light resembles

a cave through which one enters another world. Poland

had considered cremation before the world wars, but after

the war events, it waited a long time to reopen the top-

ic, moreover because it was a strongly religious Catholic

Fig. 5. Separate funerary halls (without the technical part of the crematorium) were built near cemeteries and possessed a high architectural

standard, such as the funerary hall at the cemetery of Westhausen, Frankfurt, Germany, built in 1918 in accordance with the plans of

artist Otto Herbert Hajek. It is one of the few surviving brutalist buildings. The construction represents a large span of beams.

The folds of the roof are also held up by the concrete structure, and sculptural accessories are used only for details

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

Il. 5. Oddzielne sale pogrzebowe (bez części technicznej krematorium) powstały przy cmentarzach i miały wysoki standard architektoniczny,

jak np. sala pogrzebowa na cmentarzu w Westhausen we Frankfurcie, Niemcy, zbudowana w 1918 r. według planów artysty Otto Herberta Hajka.

Jest to jeden z nielicznych zachowanych budynków brutalistycznych. Konstrukcja przedstawia dużą rozpiętość belek.

Betonowa konstrukcja podtrzymuje również fałdy dachu, a rzeźbiarskie dodatki służą tylko do detali

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

Fig. 6. Sculptural crematorium by Abraham Miletsky, brutalism, 1975, Ukraine, Kiev

(drawing by I. Dlábiková)

II. 6. Krematorium rzeźbiarskie Abrahama Mileckiego, brutalizm, 1975, Ukraina, Kijów

(rys. I. Dlábiková)

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history 33

country. It opened its rst crematorium as late as in 1993.

The situation has changed radically since then, and in

2017, 54 crematoria were operating, of which only eight

were municipal, the others being private enterprises

Greece is the only country in the European Union where

cremation was still banned by law as late as 2005, and the

idea was discussed for its practical reasons. In the Greek

Orthodox Church, burials are experienced through strong

rituals and faith [1]. Since the fourth century, the traditional

and only manner of dealing with the bodies of the deceased

in Greece has been inhumation, followed by numerous ritu-

als well-regulated in space and time, symbolically express-

ing the communication between the living and the dead

(after: [1, p. 224]). It was not until 2019 that the rst cre-

matorium was established in Ritsona in Greece, about 50

miles from Athens. The timeline of the rst crematoriums

in European and world countries was illustrated in Table 1.

See: K. Wolicki on the conference, workshop and exhibition in

the city of Lysá nad Labem, meeting of V4 countries, 3.–4.11.2017 orga-

nised by Funeral Home Association.

Conclusions

The complicated situation which formed crematoriums

and mourning halls was transformed into architecture with

various styles and symbolism. Even though it continued

in the old tradition of cremation, the architecture of these

relatively new type of buildings is still not established. In

the rst buildings architects tried to hide big chimneys,

which are an inevitable part of these cremation machines.

Later the chimneys were exposed and created an import-

ant part of architecture. The rst crematoriums in Italy and

in the USA did not contain a mourning hall. In the case of

the rst Italian building, there was only a space where the

con went into the furnaces and the bereaved could look

at it. Later the mourning halls were necessary in every

crematorium and started to be built separately in Europe.

At the end of 20

century, the trend towards observing

cremation got back into crematoria and side by side with

mourning halls, small spaces before furnaces behind the

glass wall were created to enable the bereaved to see the

cremation in some cases. Some European countries had

their rst crematoria buildings only at the beginning of

Table 1. The first modern crematoria with incineration equipment in selected regions. Many of them were opened and closed after a short time

(Denmark) or just built and commenced use much later (Belgium, Hungary). In most countries, this was due to waiting for the introduction of

a new law or other restrictions addressing religion or environment (elaborated by I. Dlábiková based on the references)

Tabela 1. Pierwsze nowoczesne krematoria z urządzeniami do spalania w wybranych regionach. Wiele z nich zostało otwartych i zamkniętych

po krótkim czasie (Dania) lub dopiero wybudowanych i oddanych do użytku znacznie później (Belgia, Węgry). W większości krajów

było to spowodowane oczekiwaniem na wprowadzenie nowego prawa lub z racji innych ograniczeń dotyczących religii lub środowiska

(oprac. I. Dlábiková na podstawie danych z literatury przedmiotu)

34 Ivona Dlábiková, Martina Peřinková, Jan Kovář

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Abstract

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history

Cremation was a common way of burying in old cultures, for example in Ancient Greece, Celts, Ancient Rome, Vikings and many other cultures

around the world. In Europe burial practices changed since the Christian culture ruled the society, because it did not support this kind of burials and

later Charles the Great prohibited the cremation under pain of death. This ban lasted in Europe almost thousand years. The church started to tolerate

the cremation as a way of burying only in 1963. In spite of the church’s opinion, the societies built the rst crematoriums in Europe from 1874. But

these buildings for cremation have nothing to do with the old cremation rituals when the body was burnt down on a big amount of wood which last-

ed several hours. The main part of new buildings are furnaces and chimneys where the body is burnt after around one hour. This old – new way of

burying brought a new type of buildings and the discussion as to the style and symbolism of this architecture was huge. In the crematorium building

a new type of space emerged, namely a mourning hall. Later this space was separated from a crematorium and created an independent unit. Mourning

halls are now a common type of architecture in Europe and exist side by side with churches, where the religious funerals are generally held. In other

parts of the world the old types of ritual cremation with wood are preserved until today, however, the modern cremation became more suitable in

these countries as well.

The aim of the article was to clearly describe circumstances in which the spaces for modern cremation were built. The main method was studying

styles of the rst crematorium buildings and literature for this topic. These structures would never have been built without an eort of few personal-

ities, who, despite the general Christian opinion, succeeded in establishing the rst crematoriums.

Key words: crematorium, modern cremation, architecture, mourning hall, history, burying, furnaces, ash

century and almost every architect created their own

language to express these public buildings. And each

country in Europe had its own rules and opinions on cre-

mation itself [11]. Due to these reasons, the architecture of

crematoriums and mourning halls is still developing, and

this work described only the beginnings of their origins

and in the future many changes in these structures could

be expected.

Summary

The work presented the development of relatively new

architecture of crematoriums and mourning halls. The

main question is whether this kind of buildings could be

a dignied alternative to religious funerals in the church,

which also depends on the quality of this new space. The

churches were developing for centuries in Europe. From

a relatively short history of crematoriums and mourning

halls, it is clear that it had a lot of appearances. From the

theoretical background, it could be concluded that this ar-

chitecture is still developing, and it could be expected that

it will be articulated much better in the future.

Translated by

Translating agency PRESTO, Prague

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mgr. Helena Rohlová for helping obtain

books and articles for this work, Doc. Mgr. Marek Sibinský Ph.D. for

graphic design of illustrations and all who supported this work.

Brief history of crematoria and mourning halls. Modern cremation history 35

Streszczenie

Krótka historia krematoriów i sal żałobnych. Współczesna historia kremacji

Kremacja była powszechnym sposobem grzebania w dawnych kulturach, na przykład w starożytnej Grecji, Rzymie, u Celtów, Wikingów, a także

w kulturach pozaeuropejskich. W Europie praktyki grzebalne zmieniały się, odkąd chrześcijaństwo zaczęło dominować w lokalnych społecznościach.

Od czasów Karola Wielkiego obowiązywał (pod karą śmierci) zakazał kremacji. Motywy kulturowo-religijne spowodowały, że w różnych krajach

Starego Kontynentu przez prawie 1000 lat istniał prawny zakaz kremacji ciał. Kremację jako sposób grzebania Kościół zaczął tolerować dopiero

w 1963 r. Mimo oporu Kościoła rzymsko-katolickiego nowo powołane w tym celu towarzystwa od 1874 r. budowały pierwsze krematoria w Europie.

Obiekty te – budynki kremacyjne – nie miały nic wspólnego ze starymi rytuałami kremacyjnymi, kiedy ciało było spalane na dużej ilości drewna, co

trwało kilka godzin. Główną część nowych budynków stanowiły piece i kominy, w których ciało popieli się w ciągu godziny. Powstanie takich miejsc

przyczyniło się do powszechnej dyskusji na temat stylu i symboliki tej architektury. W budynku krematorium powstał nowy typ przestrzeni: sala

żałobna. Później pomieszczenie to zostało oddzielone od krematorium i utworzono samodzielną jednostkę. Sale żałobne są obecnie powszechnym

typem architektury w Europie i istnieją obok kościołów, w których zazwyczaj odbywają się ceremonie religijne. W innych częściach świata do dziś

zachował się stary typ rytualnej kremacji drewnem, jednak współczesna kremacja stała się bardziej odpowiednia również w krajach korzystających

z doświadczeń architektury historycznej.

Celem artykułu było zwięzłe opisanie okoliczności, w jakich powstawały przestrzenie służące współcześnie do kremacji. Główną metodą było

studiowanie stylów pierwszych budynków krematoryjnych oraz literatury przedmiotu. Budowle te nigdy nie powstałyby bez wysiłku kilku osobisto-

ści, którym wbrew powszechnej opinii chrześcijańskiej udało się założyć pierwsze krematoria.

Słowa kluczowe: krematorium, nowoczesna kremacja, architektura, sala żałobna, historia, grzebanie, piece, popiół