The task of this difficult architectural and landscape assignment was to analyze the historical part of the Letovice cemetery and the overall concept of the solution for all four parts of this large cemetery area by the example of the oldest cemetery part. It was very difficult to determine and create a system of approach to this contract itself, as it is a place of reverence that will be transformed through the timeline of many generations of the city’s inhabitants.
It was therefore clear to us that these could not be mere technical drawings related to the problem, but that the solutions offered had to be applicable to a wide range, over a wide time horizon. We therefore decided to create a manual in the form of a book, which in the first part will analyze the area, talk briefly about the history of the place, photographically map all axes of the system, work with static assessments of unsuitable cemetery walls, find places with potential and locate not only problems in the historic part of the cemetery, but recurring throughout the grounds.
In the second part, based on the analysis, it creates a system of usable vacancies, variants of cemetery roads based on spatial and financial possibilities, solutions of statically and ideologically unsatisfactory parts of the cemetery, all of the required and our proposed furniture, new recreational park spaces, new peripheral and internal solutions. cemetery walls with a sensitive context of moving tombstones, new tombstones of neglected graves, monuments to the crossings of axes, new entrance areas with gates, new use of the former morgue building, modifications of cemetery vegetation and all this with universal application to the whole area, which can be according to different budget plans divided into many stages.
This solution allows for relief from specific solutions to problems that can be developed over decades and allows the city management to look at possible solutions and important points that can later be processed individually on the basis of tenders. This is also helped by the variant approach, which allows you to focus on the most pressing problems of the cemetery and group other modifications into later stages. In addition, for each solution, the book offers visualizations that bring the general public closer to the possible design of all the proposals and remind them that minor adjustments and a sensitive approach can significantly change the face of this place, which should be a dignified piety that persists throughout generations.
Such an approach required a long concentration, many trips, photographs, consultations with specialists and the work of a large team. Despite the fact that the assignment was only the mechanical processing of the most pressing problems, our office decided, due to the incredible character of this place of reverence surrounded by beautiful monuments of the history of Letovice, incredible views and the neighborhood with the church of St. Prokop, to process the entire assignment in the generous form of the already mentioned book, which will offer a helping hand in the development and maintenance of this unique place.
