19 November, 2015

Garden of All Saints

Away from the trouble that takes place prior to All Saints Day on the largest cemetery of Ljubljana and Slovenia, a walk through the Garden of All Saints.
Created by master Plečnik, it was meant to be a garden of goodbye that would enable a modernised, and yet personal funeral service as the growth of the city increased the need of burial sites, and especially a mortuary that would replace the custom of keeping the dead at home until the funeral. 
Just like any of Plečnik's work, the entrance is magnificent: collonades in two floors, arranged in a huge semicircle that separates the city of the living from the city of the death.
Atop of it, a double-statue of Christ the Saviour and Mother Mary.
Each side of the entrance porch houses administration offices, straight ahead lies a worship place. 
Instead of one central mortuary, the areal hosts 14 small chapels, each of them being dedicated to one of Ljubljana's parishes resp. their patron saint. Their styles are unique and worked out in detail, from an antique temple to a byzantine church to a Renaissance-like pavillion. 
Between them - gravel roads, fountains, alleys and benches. 

On the other side of the place, a carpentry for coffins. Unlike the rest of the buildings, that are covered in peaceful white, its facade is quite dark, but lit up with golden mosaics. 

And just as you think "What a wonderful oasis"...
... you realize there is a whole lot of life going on just across the hedgerow.

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