White is the main colour of both the interior and exterior spaces of this Funeral Home designed by Martín Lejarraga in Cartagena. Natural light introduces different tones on the interior white walls and provides the different spaces with continuity. The chapel's furniture was also designed by the architect, using one single material and system.

Memory of project by Martín Lejarraga

The commission of the Funeral Home project starts with the location and management of a plot to raise the building. The property, an insurances company of local and regional scope, wanted to strengthen its customer base with this kind of facility in the area in which it concentrates its operations: the North of Cartagena, between the towns of ‘La Palma’ and ‘Pozo Estrecho’, in the surroundings of the Field of Cartagena and the ‘Mar Menor’ sea.

That was how everything started and how I learned the first lesson of work: nobody wants a mortuary in their neighbourhood.

After many attempts to purchase available plots at different locations, in a drift that progressively and inexorably leads us away from the nearest and accessible places, we just finished in the industrial park.

There, we selected an interesting plot: well proportioned and oriented, and strategically located, open to the general parking area and green zone of the industrial park, in which we could hardly distinguish small artificial stone benches and some scattered cypresses, that no one had noticed, but they add land value to us.

The second lesson was to identify and interpret the location codes, an industrial site made of constructions, that despite their different condition and activity scale - production, exhibition, storage, commercial, etc. had some common patterns that gave the whole a strange and complex discrete continuity.

We had the third lesson learned in advance, fit the budget to the limit of viability. With this objective, we adjusted the building's functional scheme to minimize it, with the consequent surface reduction and the achievement of an accurate and abstract construction.

Inside the building, the continuity provided by the white colour and natural light in its different orientations is qualified by the different sizes and proportions of successive spaces and textures of the materials that define them.

Designing and constructing all the furniture in the chapel was more than a lesson but a double challenge: to design, in addition to a bench, the set of pieces that form the symbolic and functional elements of the liturgy (the cross, the communion table, the lectern, etc.), and do it with a single system and material: pine wood plank, that in different combinations, allows us to solve an connect all parts of the room.

How to recognize the building in the distance against a backdrop of exotic signs was the last lesson: we support the sign on the top of the facade and cut it out against the sky, no doubt this was the best way to distinguish it from a distant point.

I bet Ed Ruscha himself would have liked it...

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Collaborators
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Quantity surveyor.- Manuel Moreno.
Structure.- Idee, Eduardo Díez.
Consultant.- José Aº Martínez.
Construction Manager.- Marco Carselle.
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Client
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Servicios Funerarios del Campo de Cartagena, S.L.
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Builder
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Sanimar S.L.
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Area
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Plot area.- 1,844 m².
Built area.- 1,047.40 m².
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Dates
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Project period.- 2007–2012.
Built.- 2013.
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Location
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La Palma Industrial Park, 30593 Cartagena. Spain.
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Budget
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€550,000 (VAT excluded), 525 €/m².
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Photography
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Martín Lejarraga. Architect by Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid - ETSAM (1987), with office in Cartagena, Murcia, since 1991.

Works selection:
- New buildings:
Loop Inn Hostel (Cartagena), Public and primary school ^Nuestra Señora del Rosario^, Library and Reading Park (Torre Pacheco), University Campus (Lorca), MUCAB (Blanca), House for a Swimmer (Espinardo), Elevator - Access - Civil War Shelters and mixed-use building (Cartagena), 8 Social Housing (La Unión), Rural Activity Center (Cartagena), General Services Building and Support Centre for Research and development - CAID (Murcia) and Military Navy Headquarters (Cartagena).
- Rehabilitation:
Tivoli building restoration and extension (Cartagena), Loop Homes Palace – Rehabilitation of palatial patio houses from 19th century for residence (Granada), Rehabilitation and adaptation of the building for Student Center ^Casa del Estudiante^ (Cartagena), Casa Dorda building restoration and extension (Cartagena), Housing-Study for a painter (Cartagena), Housing for a painter and two cats (Cartagena), MURAM – Aguirre Palace restoration and extension (Cartagena), Public Library – Rehabilitation of San Joaquin and San Pascual Convent (Cieza) and Rehabilitation of Military Navy Hospital and Antigones Barracks (Cartagena).
- Interior design:
CANANA LA Brew Pub (La Aljorra), El Cuervo Jazz Bar (Cartagena), MARINO Take Away (Cartagena), iGarpe Offices (San Javier), Principal Bar 1-2 (Cartagena).
- Creative and Exhibition Spaces:
Art Galleries My Name´s Lolita Art (Valencia, Madrid), T-20 (1-2) (Murcia), Espacio Artes Visuales (EAV-Murcia),
Stands in Orgatec and Marmomacc, Arco Stand 2007/00, Chicago 2003/02, La Naval Art Gallery (Arco’08).

Awards selection:
BOY Awards 2018/14, Murcia Regional Architecture Award 2015/11/07/05/03/1997/95/92, BIGMAT Award 2011, FAD Award 2011(Finalist 2019/11/05/04/03/01), Spanish Architecture Biennale 2011/09/05/1998, SIMA Cities Award 2008, COAM Award 2005, Saloni Award 2004, Comunidad Valenciana Architecture Award 2001- finalist, 5th Biennal European of Landscape - Selection, Metápolis 2-3 Encounters.
Associate professor in Architecture School of Cartagena. Guest professor in Architecture Schools such as Alicante, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and i42 Institute of Murcia.

Interferences and Collaborations with Plastic Artists and other disciplines.
Creator of ^Fachadas^ project.
Co-Director / Editor of La Naval.

Act.>. 11-2012/10-2019

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