Given Sir John Soane’s reputation as a designer of funerary monuments, perhaps the most famous being at the Dulwich Gallery or the Soane family tomb at St Pancras Old Church which was the model for Giles Gilbert Scott’s classical telephone box, and also his interest in innovation in his age, it is appropriate that Sir John Soane’s Museum should collaborate with Bompas and Parr and with Maggies, the charity that supports people affected by cancer and their families on Monumental Masonry – an international competition for architects and designers to create modern interpretation of funerary monuments in celebration of death, the models for the finalists being currently on display at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London – all using the modern technology of 3D printers.
The competition attracted 120 entries from architects and designers around the world. Some are quite traditional and classical, harking back to traditional designs; the more interesting are those which are modern and innovative, but all seek to create monuments that will provide an ongoing memory of those who have died.
“Through the creation of physical forms and structures that commemorate lives well-lived, the competition was intended to provide an antidote to our increasingly digital society and to provide an outlet fitting the elevated sense of self that has emerged in recent years, stimulated by the cult of celebrity and the desire to be famous. Monumental Masonry sought to reconcile these aspects of modern life with our typically maudlin attitude to death.”
24 designs were shortlisted by Bompas & Parr and then scored on narrative and rationale, relevance and ‘monumentality’ by a panel of judges from a number of different walks of life:
Katherine Sleeman – Palliative care expert from Kings College London
Neil Luxston – Stonemason from Highgate cemetery
Frosso Pimenides – Sir Bannister Fletcher Lecturer in Architecture at The Bartlett School of Architecture
Sam Jacob – Aarchitect and critic
Sam Bompas – Partner at Bompas & Parr
Douglas Murphy – Architecture critic
Jo Burnham – Dying Matters (National council for Palliative Care)
Abraham Thomas – Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum
Kirsten Dunne – Senior Cultural Strategy Officer at Greater London Authority
Carolyn Cocke – Chairman of the Mausolea and Monuments Trust
Laura Lee – Chief Executive of Maggie’s
The small exhibition at Sir John’s Museum in London is worth seeing for the gems of designs on display, but also for the use of 3D printing from which these beautiful models have been created.
In a world where funerary architecture is perhaps out of fashion, although previous generations created superb works of art in great cemeteries across the world from Glasgow to Havana, this competition shows that creativity in this field is still as strong as ever, if only our society would encourage it.
