The Banality of Death
Interweaving territories of life and death at the outskirts of Mashhad
J. Verdoes (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
N. Sanaan Bensi – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
M.G.H. Schoonderbeek – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
G. Koskamp – Mentor (TU Delft - Design of Constrution)
F. Geerts – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
The Banality of Death addresses the way the city of Mashhad deals with death. It is an attempt to architecturally translate and expose the tensions that arise between traditional values and the modern transformation of the burial process by the design of three extended rest-stops along the Bagcheh Highway that act as mediators with the goal of interweaving the territories of the dead and living. They are part of the burial ritual as well as they accommodate places for rest and leisure. The design includes a playscape at a former burial place of a persecuted minority in Mashhad where people are playfully confronted with death and its architecture (1), an ablution facility in between two highways that functions as the starting point of the burial ritual and acts as a transfer point for a mobility system, taking visitors that are not necessarily related to the burial ritual around the territory (2) and a watchtower situated on/in a forgotten site of heritage where formerly pilgrims encountered their first view towards the golden dome of the Imam Reza Shrine at the center of Mashhad, and has a role in the completion of the mourning process.