Vertical cemeteries rise in crowded cities
PETAH TIKVA, Israel — At first glance, the multi-tiered jungle of concrete off a major central Israeli highway does not appear unusual in this city of bland high-rises. But the burgeoning towers are groundbreaking when you consider its future tenants: They will be homes for the dead.
With real estate at a premium, Israel is at the forefront of a global movement building vertical cemeteries in densely populated countries. From Brazil to Japan, elevated cemeteries, sometimes stretching high into the sky, will be the final resting place for thousands of people. They are now the default option for the recently departed in the Holy Land.
After some hesitations, and rabbinical rulings that made the practice kosher, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox burial societies have embraced the concept as the most effective Jewish practice in an era when most of the cemeteries in major population centres are packed full.
“The source of all this is that there is simply no room,” said Tuvia Sagiv, an architect who specializes in dense burial design. “It’s unreasonable that we will live one on top of the other in tall apartment buildings and then die in villas. If we have already agreed to live one on top of the other, then we can die one on top of the other.”
The Yarkon Cemetery on the outskirts of Tel Aviv has been his flagship project. As the primary cemetery for the greater Tel Aviv area, its traditional burial grounds are at near capacity with 110,000 graves stretched across 150 acres. But thanks to an array of 30 planned vertical structures, Sagiv said the cemetery will be able to provide 250,000 more graves without gobbling up any more land, providing the region with 25 years of breathing room.
“It takes some getting used to,” he admitted, as he stood on the roof of the first completed 22-metre high building, “but it just makes the most sense.”
Cemetery overcrowding
“IF WE HAVE ALREADY AGREED TO LIVE ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER, THEN WE CAN DIE ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER..” TUVIA SAGIV
presents a challenge the world over, particularly in cramped cities and among religions that forbid or discourage cremation.
The world’s tallest existing cemetery is the 32-storey high Memorial Necropole Ecumenica in Santos, Brazil. In Tokyo, the Kouanji is a six-storey Buddhist temple where visitors can use a swipe card to have the remains of their loved ones brought to them from vaults on a conveyor belt system.
Versions of stacked cemeteries already exist in some shape or form in places like New Orleans and across Europe, in Egypt’s Mountain of the Dead, in China and in the amphitheatre-like Pok Fu Lam Rd Cemetery in Hong Kong.
But the future will likely look more like the ambitious plan of Norwegian designer Martin McSherry for an airy cemetery skyscraper that looks like a gigantic honeycomb with triangular caverns.
Other plans for cemetery towers have been presented for Paris and Mumbai. In Mexico City, another big project has been proposed: the Tower for the Dead, which will combine a vertical necropolis and a 250-metre deep subterranean complex. In China, Beijing residents have been provided subsidies to buy space in vertical cemeteries.
But only in Israel does the phenomenon appear to be part of a governmentbacked master plan. Aside from those who have already purchased future plots, individual outdoor graves are no longer offered to the families of the more than 35,000 Israelis who die each year.
The first space-saving option is to put graves on top of each other — separated by a concrete divider — and have a shared headstone. This is common among couples and even whole families, and every new pit dug in Israel has room for at least two graves in it. The second option is stacking the dead above ground into niches built into walls, a bit like in a morgue, but adorned with headstones. The third, and most revolutionary option, is to be buried in a building where each floor resembles a traditional cemetery, without the blue sky above.
For this upheaval to take off in Israel, though, the blessing of the rabbis was needed.