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Lakewood Cemetery Breaks Ground on New Mausoleum

    Added June 24, 2010

Construction has begun on Lakewood Garden Mausoleum in Minneapolis’s historic Lakewood Cemetery. Designed Joan M. Soranno, FAIA, vice president and design principal with HGA Architects and Engineers, the 24,000-square-foot, two-level Mausoleum provides options for cremation and crypt entombment in a state-of-the-art building that embraces Lakewood’s architectural legacy and landscaping while offering a contemplative interior experience.

“Lakewood’s new mausoleum is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an architect,” Soranno says. “This building is not only significant to Lakewood, but to architecture on a national level. Many American funerary buildings are constructed using a template and look very similar to each other. I commend Lakewood for commissioning a unique design, one that is powerful and sophisticated, and truly considers the experience of the visitor.”

The Mausoleum takes its design cues from Lakewood itself, a lawn plan cemetery inspired in part by Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Dedicated in 1871, the 250-acre Lakewood Cemetery is characterized by open, sweeping lawns with a deciduous tree canopy, gently curving roadways, picturesque lake, limited vertical monuments, and distinctive public structures that maximize open green space.

“We want visitors to feel a sense of peace and calm—an environment conducive to contemplation and healing,” Soranno explains. “Our design accomplishes this through three distinct elements. The first is natural light, a powerful force that evokes a sense of spirituality, warmth and comfort. The second is beauty and craftsmanship. When you approach and enter this building, you’ll know that time, care and consideration were taken to design it. And the last element is a connection to Lakewood’s greatest asset—its landscape. The mausoleum will be built into a hillside, with more than half of the square footage of the building nestled into the earth. Its intimate feeling allows the landscape to be the shining star.”

Oriented on a north-south axis, the mausoleum is intimately scaled on the north-facing street façade, its massing and height minimized to highlight the beauty and healing qualities of nature as visitors approach. Horizontal bands of split-faced gray granite tie the structure to the earth. A gently curving, white mosaic-tile marble entry embraces visitors as they pass through the decorative bronze door. The mosaic tile and bronze door draw on abstracted nature imagery, while the deep-recessed entry plays with the concept of shadow and light.

Along the south façade on the garden level, the mausoleum unfolds within three cubicle crypt pods nestled into the slope—recalling Lakewood’s family mausoleums and traditional subterranean funerary architecture hunkered into the protective earth.

The interior is designed as a series of spatial experiences, in which a play of light and materials emphasize the progression from our own earthly lives to one of contemplation and remembrance. Visitors and family members move from the public, community-focused street level to the more spiritually focused private spaces housing the crypts, niches and Committal room on the lower garden level. A line of clerestory windows casting light from above a central staircase guides visitors as they descend to the burial rooms. A series of skylights and windows introduce light and exterior views throughout the lower level.

The rich palette of materials (granite, marble, wood) and architectural features (mosaics, bronze artwork, stained glass) connect with Lakewood’s other buildings, including the neo-byzantine 1910 Lakewood Chapel and the contemporary 1967 Memorial Community Mausoleum adjacent to the new Mausoleum.

Lakewood Garden Mausoleum is part of an existing master plan developed by landscape architects Halvorson Design Partnership in 2003. The plan provides optimal burial and cremation options, protects open spaces, and identifies future development around existing building zones and patterns within the landscape.

“This is an investment in Lakewood’s ability to meet the needs of families now and into the future, particularly with the rise in those choosing cremation,” says Ronald Gjerde, Jr., president of the Lakewood Cemetery Association. “Our current mausoleum and columbarium are nearing capacity, which makes this the right time to move forward with this part of our master plan. With the addition of this mausoleum, we predict we can continue to serve families for at least another 100 years.”

The first new mausoleum built at Lakewood in more than 40 years, the Garden Mausoleum and surrounding landscaping are scheduled for completion in September 2011.

About Lakewood Cemetery

Founded in 1871, Lakewood is a nonprofit, perpetual care cemetery association governed by a board of trustees. Lakewood is open to all people. The cemetery exists to preserve the memory of life and share its beautiful landscape, rich history and artistic treasures with the community. Lakewood is located at Hennepin Avenue South and 36th Street in Minneapolis.

About HGA

HGA is an integrated architecture, engineering and planning firm that helps prepare its clients for the future. With offices in Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, California, the nationally recognized firm has developed expertise in the healthcare, public, corporate, arts, community and education industries since 1953. HGA’s culture for interdisciplinary collaboration, knowledge sharing and design investigation enables its clients to achieve success with responsive, innovative and sustainable design. http://www.hga.com/

Soranno is best known for contemporary architecture that is culturally and spiritually inspired. Her work includes Bigelow Chapel, which received the National AIA Honor Award for Architecture, and the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North, featured in Architectural Record and The New York Times.