In some cities around the world, there is simply nowhere left to bury the dead
As BBC notes, the population of our planet is growing by leaps and bounds, and megacities are becoming increasingly overpopulated. Traditional methods of burying the dead are no longer working: there is less and less space for conventional cemeteries. Moreover, the problem turns out to be not just a shortage of land.
For instance, the custom of "sky burial" (in Tibet, for example, this is the so-called almsgiving to birds, where the bodies of the deceased are left in an open place for vultures to eat) in India has faced a serious shortage of birds of prey, and the local Zoroastrian community has had to switch to using solar concentrator mirrors—a practice seemingly straight out of a dystopia.
Or the mysterious story of German cemeteries, where gravediggers can no longer bury as before in old graves, because it turned out that even after 40 years, buried bodies show no signs of decomposition and look as if they were buried last week. And this is not only in Germany. In many European countries, where it was once common practice to reuse old graves after 15-20 years, this has now become impossible.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, where land for the dead is no less scarce than for the living, many state columbariums are overflowing. This has led funeral homes to store hundreds of thousands of urns with ashes in their storerooms, waiting for the government to find a place for their burial. But even if a spot for an urn is found, it will cost as much as a luxury apartment.
To solve the described problem, various countries are proposing many options—unusual, unfamiliar, strange, and sometimes downright gruesome (for example, liquefying incompletely decomposed bodies or raffling off spots in a columbarium). However, the most attention has been drawn to an idea that seems to contradict common sense: vertical cemeteries.
In these skyscrapers, coffins of the dead are stacked in neat rows, placed on shelves or in special boxes. Developers promise a sevenfold saving of space compared to a conventional cemetery. Moreover, these high-rises become local landmarks, albeit quite specific ones. Such buildings already exist in many countries, from Brazil to Israel, and we can expect new original designs to appear in cities as diverse as Oslo, Verona, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Paris.
Will this solve the problem? And will society accept vertical cemeteries?
"Space shortage is a big problem. Here in London, for example, in many areas there is simply no room left for burials," says Gary Burks, manager of a cemetery and crematorium in East London.
In cities with a high percentage of Jewish or Muslim populations, the situation is even more tense, as cremation is taboo in these religions. One study predicts that if burials in cemeteries remain as popular in 2050 as they were in 2014, humanity will have to allocate an additional 6,500 square kilometers of land—an area more than five times the size of New York City.
However, vertical burials are nothing new to humanity. Recall, for example, the famous Cemetery of the Innocents, which was once located almost in the center of Paris (in the "belly of Paris"). In the Middle Ages, it was overcrowded (it is believed that the Cemetery of the Innocents became the burial place of about two million bodies, with mass graves reaching depths of up to 10 meters, and the ground level rising by more than two meters). Up to 18,000 bodies could be in one grave. Eventually, this cemetery became a breeding ground for infection, and at the demand of the citizens, it was closed, and the remains were taken outside the city to abandoned quarries, where they were disinfected. The remaining bones were partially stored in the Paris catacombs.
So the first experiments with vertical burial can hardly be called successful. Today's vertical cemeteries look much more civilized. Catholic cemeteries in New Orleans (USA) are often called cities of the dead because of the many above-ground tombs and crypts, whose stone is bleached by time, sun, and wind. Such "raised" burials had a practical purpose: the city was built on a swamp.
But the tallest such structure is the Memorial Ecumenical Necropolis in Santos, Brazil, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest cemetery. The graves here are arranged in 32 tiers, with space to accommodate the remains of 14,000 people. When it was first built in 1983, the necropolis looked much more modest, but the demand for "graves with a view" turned out to be so high that additional floors had to be added to the original 10.
In addition to space for urns with ashes and coffins, there are funeral halls, a crematorium, a chapel, a museum, and even a rooftop snack bar. The building is surrounded by a beautiful forest park with luxurious tropical vegetation, and the grounds include a pond and a waterfall. There is even a nature reserve where they plan to breed toucans. Not quite like a traditional cemetery, is it?
On each floor, there are rows of numbered blocks, each of which can consist of 150 burials, equipped with a modern ventilation system. "Relatives come up here by elevator, and when they get off on their floor, the coffin is already waiting for them," says Priscila Trevisani, whose grandparents are buried here.
As in many European countries, plots in this cemetery are leased, not purchased. Once the body of the deceased has fully decomposed (a process that takes about three years), what remains can be transferred to an ossuary (charnel house). "Since there is no earth here, everything looks very clean. Everything is very bright, the lighting on the floors is natural," says Trevisani.
In Santos, the shortage of space is not as acute as in much larger cities. For example, when rules banning the purchase of new plots for graves came into effect in Tel Aviv, multi-story buildings capable of accommodating up to 250,000 burials began to be erected at the famous Yarkon Cemetery. Initially, local ultra-Orthodox Jews were skeptical, but then rabbis declared such cemeteries kosher. Since a Jewish grave must be connected to the ground, pipes filled with earth are laid in the walls of multi-story buildings.
“Horizontal cemeteries are very inefficient,” says Chandrasekar Velmurugan, who in 2011, together with colleague Fiyette Romaric, designed a vertical cemetery in Paris. “On a plot of land 25x25 m, you can only bury 200 people. But if you bury above ground, one above the other, about 1,480.”
Perhaps this unconventional approach to funeral services will help solve this problem in the 21st century. “In the building we designed, each deceased has their own memorial 'branch' attached to the outside of the building. Every year on the anniversary of their death, it lights up, reminding us of them,” says Velmurugan.
But there are other, also quite practical considerations. The massive tombstones and stones at Victorian cemeteries in Britain remind us that the living relatives of those buried there will also die sooner or later. If you are buried in the ground, that's fine. But in the case of vertical cemetery skyscrapers, there is a danger that they will turn into an abandoned analogue of the Egyptian pyramids.
The way out of this situation is the repeated reuse of each burial site. This, of course, will not be to everyone's liking, and the words “rest in peace” lose their literal meaning. At the City of London Cemetery, some graves have already begun to be reused, but this does not always require disturbing someone's remains.
“Originally, many of the old plots in this cemetery were designed for the burial of six people,” explains Gary Burks. “Some graves are more than 3.5 m deep, but only two people are buried in them.”
But for London public opinion, it is quite difficult to accept that someone's remains will be dug up. For one thing, it is currently illegal. “This is a very important point,” Burks emphasizes. “If a grave has not been used for more than 75 years, you have the right to claim that plot, but in the case of vertical burial, this is not the case.”
Priscilla Trevisani is more positive about vertical cemeteries. “We all thought it was a wonderful way to honor the memory of my grandparents. Firstly, they lie next to each other, in the city they once chose to live in, in a quiet and peaceful place with a beautiful view of the city. And secondly, they are not taking up land in a regular cemetery.”