A Spring For Souls

Although ancestor worship has been a foundation of Chinese civilization for millennia, the policies and the acceleration of urban dynamics of the last century have disrupted funerary spaces in cities like Shanghai. Since then, the space and time allotted to mourning in the metropolis have been shrinking and gradually tending to disappear thanks to new ecological burial practices. Encouraging the dematerialization of the grave, these new methods of placement make it possible to face the imminent saturation of cemeteries due to the ageing of the population, but simultaneously lead to the disappearance of places of mourning. In an increasingly mobile, urban and virtual Shanghai society, funerary spaces are losing their symbolism and highlighting a growing dichotomy between spirituality and urbanity, questioning the future of funeral spaces in the metropolis.

Like the ancient relationship between the ancestral temple and the tomb, this project is based on the contemporary reinterpretation of this duality of spaces between memory and placement. While facing the despatialization of death, this harmonious ecosystem introduces a new temporality of mourning while participating in the implementation of current and future ecological funeral policies. By giving birth to a new imaginary of death, the Spring gives birth to a new rituality nourished by virtuality while inscribing itself in a perennial way in the territory and the society of Shanghai, reconnecting spirituality and urbanity. Based on the existing cemeteries, the whole process organizes the regeneration of these spaces to inscribe them durably in the Shanghai territory. On the eve of a journey through the seasons by 2050, this approach addresses many faces to accompany the transformations of the territory and practices in the image of a dynamic society in constant movement.