A columbarium, also known as an urn space or an urn wall, is a structure with small niches in which a vessel with the ashes of a deceased person is placed. The space separated for the urn is accompanied by a plaque commemorating the deceased. Most often, there is also a place for candles and flowers by the wall. A columbarium is a structure that consists of many, in some cases even several hundred, chambers.
Types of columbaria
The columbarium most often takes the form of a traditional wall with recesses (chambers) for urns. Sometimes, however, these can be extensive columbaria systems, or even cuboid-shaped buildings or domed cemetery structures serving as a tomb. Urn spaces are most often built in cemeteries or near cremation gardens. The purpose of this type of construction is to create a dignified and unique place of commemoration and burial of the dead. Cremation of corpses has been a very popular form of burial in Western Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries for years. In Polish society, this process is slowly becoming an increasingly popular form of funeral. Burial in urns is already possible in all large cities in Poland. The authorities of metropolises such as Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź and Gdańsk are investing in new columbaria.
History of urn places
In the architecture of ancient Rome, it was a kind of tomb for many people, usually connected by family and personal ties – it could be a burial place for relatives, but also clients and freedmen associated with a given family. The term columbarium is related to the visual character of the building – the word columba is Latin for dove, and the whole building simply originally resembled a dovecote to the Romans. The places for urns were located in the underground part in multi-storey rows and provided with marble plates with the names of the deceased. Along the walls, sarcophagi were placed, i.e. burial places of more important and wealthy people. The interior of the room was decorated with frescoes, bas-reliefs and stuccoes. Colubararia emerged due to the rapid growth of the population of Rome and rising land prices. The area of cemeteries was becoming too small in relation to the needs, so it was necessary to create an alternative and less absorbing urban form of burial. In Europe, columbarium systems began to appear on a larger scale in modern times, which was contributed to by the popularization of the cremation process. Some of the most famous objects from the 19th century can be found in cemeteries in Rome, in the Italian town of Blera and in the Bernardine Cemetery in Užupis in Vilnius.
Columbarium in modern cities
Urn walls are beginning to appear in an increasing number of Polish cemeteries. This is the reaction of the authorities to the fact that traditional cemeteries are running out of places for burial. On the site intended for one traditional family grave, a columbarium with 15 niches for 4 urns can be erected, which will allow to create memorial places for 60 deceased. For the economical use of the cemetery area and for its aesthetic appeal, urn walls can also be used as a cemetery wall. It is also worth noting that the columbarium is a much more cost-effective investment both for the investor who intends to develop the area in the cemetery and for the people buying individual places for urns. In addition, the legal regulations in Poland are adapted to carry out the last farewell in the form of cremation and strictly regulate the places where the urn with the ashes of the deceased person can be placed. These are: an earth grave, a brick tomb and a columbarium. The funeral ceremony itself, in which the ashes are buried, is almost no different from a traditional burial.
Columbaria are more and more often referred to as cemeteries of the future, because there are many arguments in favor of their construction, including economic and ecological ones. Investing in an urn wall reduces funeral costs, protects against the spread of germs, and allows you to use the available area in a more reasonable way.
Columbarium – what should be included in the project?
At the beginning of the columbarium planning process, in addition to aspects such as project boundaries, investment outlays or work schedule, it is worth clearly defining the land and landscape development strategy. A columbarium must be durable, designed as a timeless object, and at the same time it should fit in with contemporary design trends of the surrounding space. It is worth taking into account the composition of vegetation that will surround the wall for urns. It will also be extremely important to plan an appropriate space for reflection for visitors to this place. These can be not only benches or seats, but also a more complicated form of space arrangement, such as a pond, stream or fountain. When preparing a project, one should not forget about the function that this place will perform. It should be conducive to contemplation and tranquility.
Dasag offers columbarium systems, i.e. sets of modular components used to construct a columbarium. The full set includes the following slabs: foundation, ground plate, epitaph slab, as well as single- and multi-chamber segments, as well as roofing and shelves for flowers and candles.
