Sacral neutral : An exploration of the funeral spaces of tomorrow

Abstract: The thesis addresses the current need for new ceremony spaces for funerals. Non-confessional or civil funerals are increasing in Sweden, where projections indicate that one of four funerals in 2030 will be civil. This is believed to have its origin in that more and more Swedes have gained a more distant relationship to the institutional religion and its ceremonies. Instead, we can see today a movement towards more individualized and personalized ceremonies. The funeral chapel, the most common ceremonial room for funerals, has been designed since the 1960s to be a neutral space, possible for non-confessional or civil funerals. It is important to clarify though, that the dominant ceremony in these rooms has always been the Christian funeral. Consequently, ceremonies that are outside the Swedish Church are based on tolerance to the dominant religion in these buildings. Sweden, however, is no longer a homogeneous country to the extent that the entire population confesses to the Lutheran faith. Instead we are today made up of a population with a variety of faiths and views of life. Consequently, we can see a dissonance between the ceremonial spaces provided by the Swedish Church and the cultural diversity in Sweden today.Seen against this background, it is expected that there will be a future need of new ceremony buildings. Spaces accessible for everyone, which can respond to the varying forms of ceremonies, secular as well as religious. Thus, this thesis aims to create a proposal for a non-confessional ceremonial building intended for funeral ceremonies in Umeå. Through a theoretical as well as practical exploration regarding our historical and current relationship to the funeral ceremony and its spaces, this thesis will strive towards clarifying the nature of the next generation of ceremonial buildings for funerals.