Germany
Evaluation
The new cemetery in Riem successfully combines
a contemporary landscape park cemetery with the
motifs of a traditional enclosed regional village cem-
etery, in an ideal symbiosis.
The materials and construction details are distin-
guished by quality craftsmanship, sustainability and
the necessary economy. It is a unique place with a
very special identity. The textures and characteristic
colours of the natural stones and corten steel con-
trast with the greens of the vegetation and the blue
Munich sky and all correspond to the light grey of
the concrete and the gravel pathways.
The spiritual quality of the place inside the burial
islands can be felt, despite the close proximity to
the trade fair centre and the motorway. The enclo-
sures with their ‘two-faced’ walls, showing colour-
ful sloped berms to the outside and stone walls on
the inside, offer quiet and honourable places for the
graves. Visitors are offered views over the cemetery
walls towards the city landscape and beyond to
the Alps. This respectful relationship between the
inside and outside gives the cemetery a sense of
lightness. On occasion, visitors have been known to
lie in the unused meadows of the cemetery during
their lunch breaks.
Lisa Diedrich describes the character of the cem-
etery as follows:
No heroic prospects but rather simple sen-
sual stimulation distinguishes the walk to the
graves: the steps on the polygonal pavers in
the court, the sound of the gravel under one’s
feet on the way to the grave, the smell of
the fruit trees along the pathway edge, the
elegant bending of the grasses on the sloped
berms, the touch of the rough corten-steel
gates or dry-laid stone walls, the rustling of
the leaves as one arrives at the graves.^31
