Municipal Cemetery of Armea
Amoretti & Calvi Architetti

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

The concept for the expansion of the Armea Cemetery was designing a place where oblivion lives with memory, passing gradually from the personal to the collective.

The Armea di Sanremo cemetery is located in Liguria near Monaco. The expansion of the cemetery consists of a burial area, an individual ossuary tower, and a common ossuary and cinerary housed in a cloister. To keep the cemetery close to the town the extension is built into the hilllside above the old cemetery.  

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

The burial area extends along the terraces following the natural topography of the site. It is low density burial zone with sarcophagi of marble ingot and loculi partly buried, identified by a covering tombstone. The retaining walls are of broken local stone, the stairs precast concrete, and the paths covered in gravel.

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

The natural process of the transformation of the remains entails a succession of burials in a gradual passage from the personal to the collective. For the first forty years the remains are buried in the graveyard, then they are transferred in small individual urns to the ossuary tower for the next forty years. Finally, having lost their individuality, they are housed in a small cloister opposite the tower where they will be preserved perpetually.

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

The cloister is an enclosed and protected space holding only the essential elements; two stone benches and two tombstones,  A long narrow cut in the marble wall opens the view towards the valley.

Photo: Aldo Amoretti

The various parts of the cemetery use the same materials; White C Carrara Marble and Vicoforte Limestone, local stone and precast concrete.

Plan courtesy Amoretti & Calvi Architetti