asBUILT 16 - PUSHAK AS: Vestfold Crematorium (Upon Request)

In the ever more profane Scandinavian societies rituals of death have gradually been relocated from the religious sphere and the spaces of churches, spurring a continuous search for new ceremonies and rooms. The importance of these changing rituals is indisputable, and thus designing spaces that resonates with the gravity of these rites has become an imperative architectural task. "Faced with the technicalities and practicalities of the burning of human corpses on one side, and the vastness of death on the other, the architects have chosen a truly inspired strategy: as all the rooms of the cremation procedure are opened before you, one by one, there is also always a way out," Ingerid Helsing Almaas observes in her essay on Pushak Architects' Vestfold Crematorium (completed in 2010): "The challenge offered by this building is in the openness: you can follow your dead all the way. See everything. Take part in everything."