Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

A funeral parlor is a building that everyone of us visits sooner or later several times throughout our lives, and we get involved in different ways with it. Sometimes as a visitor, sometimes as a close friend or direct kin of the deceased, maybe even…

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

Over a raised platform located in the entrance of Toledo cemetery lays the New Funeral Parlor. From here you can behold the city center, the new districts and a wide sector of the Tajo riverbanks, of course the project doesn´t waste this unique chance by turning the place and its possibilities in the main string of it.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

We access the building focusing in the well known silhouette of the city centre and led by a stone wall of masonry that works as a reference for the building itself. Every part of the main access is considered as a big promenade that uses the excellent views in its favour, conducting, showing, hiding, framing and qualifying the different perspectives inside and outside of the building. An intense relationship with the landscape and a constant in and out traffic are seek in this project.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

As a trench dig in the earth, the gallery previous to the barrows shows the landscape and hides from sunlight southeast-southwest arch with a powerful concrete cantilever slab that is actually an extension of the gallery ceiling itself. The gallery is slatted in its upper part for completing the solar protection. The linear space of this gallery turns and twists looking for the best views of the cathedral and the city centre, giving place to soft lines in the edges thus adding sensuality and dynamism to this space.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

Pathways divide and separate into two clearly different sectors visually connected through the barrows, losing slowly emotional graveness through the gallery that is configured as a “living” and linking space.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

Photo by Miguel de Guzmán. © TASH. Published on November 16, 2011.

LOCATION

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

ROOF PLAN

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

GROUND FLOOR

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

SECTIONS

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

ELEVATIONS

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.

DETAIL

© TASH (Taller de Arquitectura Sanchez-Horneros) . Published on November 16, 2011.