#igualadacemetery

I am hugely honoured to have received Highly Commended in the Architecture & Light category at the 2019 Blueprint Architecture Photography Awards for my photographs of Enric Miralles’ Igualada Cemetery. I’m genuinely humbled by this; I didn’t think I stood a chance. My entry comprised the following three shots and short piece of writing.

This photographic work looks simply at the opening and the collection of light in architecture. Shot in the summer of 2016, I was focussed upon this thematic whilst visiting Enric Miralles’ unfinished Igualada Cemetery in the Province of Barcelona, Spain. The unfinished work of architecture offers a loosely defined spatial arrangement, and unable to perform its intended function, it resists functional description. I could simply enjoy the generosity of form and volume, the play of light across its cool concrete planes, a generosity of form and volume, and the feel of gravel underfoot. The seemingly prototypical concrete brise-soleil overhead, and deft, sculptural holes in the roof plane capture and cast the temporal arc of the Catalonian sun over wall and floor.

I was reminded of an interview with the novelist Paul Auster, in which he stated his desire for the reader to participate in the work. James Naughtie put it to Auster that intimacy may be easier, or better in the end if ‘some things’ were left unresolved. In the unfinished spaces of the Igualada Cemetery we are afforded terms of great intimacy with the architect. The work represents a liminal space; we are empowered by the absence of a prescribed experience, and we must actively participate in a dialogue with Miralles and in the completion of the design. Visiting the cemetery was an affecting, and profoundly moving experience.

Igualada Cemetery