Humanity

Idea projektu

A memorial architecture proposed at ground level near Nagoya Station to reclaim human time within a cold, orderly city accelerated by the Chuo Shinkansen, restoring humanity to urban life by reintroducing traces of life and death that have been banished from the city.

Popis projektu

With the opening of the Chuo Shinkansen, Nagoya will become just 40 minutes from Tokyo. Yet this accelerated sense of time is detached from the human timeline spanning life to death. In the name of urban optimization, traces of human activity such as crematoriums and cemeteries have been banished underground or to the suburbs, erasing humanity from the city. The cluster of skyscrapers lining Nagoya Station symbolizes urban functionality and rationality, yet due to its inorganic nature also appears as a tombstone for the city. The project proposes a memorial architecture on the ground level as a place to reclaim human time, an architecture designed to rewind the time stretched out by the Linear, proposing a new Arcadia that restores the humanity of a city that is slowly being lost.

Technické informace

The building is constructed of reinforced concrete, and half of the facility’s electricity is supplied by waste heat generated during cremations.