The subjecct was to create a new facility as a place of prayer where people could harmoniously come together regardless of religion or race.
The project for the Inagawa Cemetery was commissioned to David Chipperfield Architects. After a design and construction period of four and a half years, the opening of the new chapel and visitor centre opened in May 2017.
 

Description of project by David Chipperfield Architects

Inagawa Cemetery is located on a steep site in the Hokusetsu Mountain Range of the Hyogo prefecture, approximately 40 kilometres north of Osaka. The cemetery is laid out across terraces and bisected by a monumental flight of steps leading up to a shrine at the highest point – an axis that orients the whole project.

The visitor centre and chapel are designed as a marked threshold between the outer world and a quieter space within for contemplation. Aligned with the central staircase, and as a counterpoint to the shrine, the visitor and chapel spaces are gathered around a courtyard. Visitors approach this space from an exterior platform that leads to a wide, framed central opening in the stepped south-east façade.

The programme is formally arranged under a single, sloping roof plane, following the view line from the entrance up to the shrine. The rooms of the visitor centre open onto the courtyard garden while the secluded chapel remains separate. It can be reached via a discrete corridor, directly accessed from the outside or up a gentle ramp from the garden. An unadorned and quiet room with minimal heating and artificial lighting offers a non-denominational contemplative space, pure in its form. Relying on indirect sunlight from the gardens on either side, the chapel visitor finds seclusion and their focus is drawn to the essential rhythms of time through the natural indicators of daylight fluctuation and seasonal foliage changes. The planting of all the gardens is inspired by the palettes and textures of Japanese meadows and woodlands and a selection of grasses, shrubs and wildflowers are carefully juxtaposed.

On the diagonally opposite corner of the courtyard is the visitor centre. Two large rooms at the lower end of the roof provide for family gatherings and commemorations. The visitors lounge offers an informal area for resting and eating. The memorial room, which can be separated into three smaller rooms by pleated curtains made with washi paper on fabric, offers space for formal feasts after rituals.

The floors, walls and roof are formed as pure building elements and poured from the same earth-like red coloured concrete – honed for internal floors and ground and sandblasted for walkway walls and soffits – giving the overall structure a monolithic appearance. A range of furniture designed specifically for the project consisting of simple, informal painted wooden chairs, benches, tables can be re-arranged depending on the occasion.

Following the axial link between the two ends of the site, a rill carries water down the middle of the staircase from the top of the mountain directly towards the building. As it approaches the lower part of the staircase near the chapel, the running water slows and pools as it collects into a trough, then is diverted through a new underground channel under the site to the nearby canal.

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Architects
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David Chipperfield Architects London. Director in charge.- David Chipperfield
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Project architects
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Matt Ball (design lead), Tom Herre (detail design, construction)
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Collaborators
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Lighting.- Viabizzuno Srl. Landscape architect.- Marcia Iwatate + Kamimura Landscape Architects. Signage.- Hayashi Takuma Design Office. Furniture .- Cassina IXC Ltd. Textile.- NUNO Corporation. Structural consultant.- Jun Sato Structural. Engineering. MEP consultant.- ES Associates. Project manager.- Naoko Kawamura
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Associate architect Arquitecto Asociado
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Key Operation Inc. / Architects
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Client
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Boenfukyukai Foundation
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Contractor and contact architect
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Obayashi Corporation
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Gross floor area
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500 m²
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Dates
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Project start.- 2013. Construction start.- 2016. Completion.- 2017
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Sir David Alan Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and was raised on a farm in Devon, in the southwest of England. He studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, graduating in 1980. He later worked with Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers before founding his own firm, David Chipperfield Architects, in 1985.

The firm has grown to include offices in London, Berlin (1998), Shanghai (2005), Milan (2006), and Santiago de Compostela (2022). His first notable commission was a commercial interior for Issey Miyake in London, which led him to work in Japan. In the United Kingdom, his first significant building was the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, completed in 1997.

Chipperfield has developed over one hundred projects across Asia, Europe, and North America, including civic, cultural, academic, and residential buildings. In Germany, he led the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin (1993–2009) and the construction of the James-Simon-Galerie (1999–2018).

He has been a professor at various universities in Europe and the United States, including the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and Yale University. In 2012, he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. In 2017, he established the RIA Foundation in Galicia, Spain, dedicated to research on sustainable development in the region.

He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and has been recognized as an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). He has received numerous awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2011, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2013, and the Pritzker Prize in 2023. In 2009, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2010 he was knighted for his services to architecture, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the United Kingdom.

Chipperfield's career is distinguished by his focus on the relationship between architecture and its context, as well as his commitment to sustainability and the preservation of architectural heritage.

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Published on: July 4, 2017
Cite: "Inagawa Cemetery chapel and visitor centre by David Chipperfield Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/inagawa-cemetery-chapel-and-visitor-centre-david-chipperfield-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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