Arnau Rovira shares his photographs of the municipal cemetery of Igualada (Barcelona), a work of Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós, completed in the 1990s.

The rites of passage between life and death are acted out on a stage where architecture blends with nature. Because “a cemetery is not a tomb; but it is better said to be a relationship between landscape and the oblivion.” In the concave site of a former quarry, the earth has been modelled, and the walls of the enclosure are either constructed with the same material extracted from the excavation and bound with metallic mesh, or with rows of niches which have concrete walls that open like petals of stone flowers. They all outline a solemn route that, paved with logs embedded in concrete, resembles the flow of a stationary river. The rusty gates of the mausoleums also participate in the static choreography of this eternal, silent garden city – one which is altered only slightly by the change and growth of vegetation and the gradual passing of time.

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