Rest in Peace? Burial on Private Land

This chapter explores the ways in which Maxwell Fry's ideas on crematorium design and what he called 'an anatomy of mourning'. An anatomy of mourning embodied at Coychurch by means of architectural space, the formalist language of Modernism and the elements of delay and distance in order to make people participate more closely in the cremation service through the design of the building and its approaches. In order to evaluate Fry's remarkable achievements it is first necessary to understand something of both the history of cremation and the development of crematorium design in Britain and more particularly, in Wales. Fry reported to his clients that the view of the crematorium would be at first hidden by groups of trees so that it would be realised properly as mourners reached the lower ground. Fry had never designed a crematorium, but he enjoyed a reputation as a forward thinker and promoter of social values in architecture.