EAT, GREET & GRIEVE / 5 of 13

Beyond the Charnel House is its Madang, a recreation of the inner garden of a traditional Korean home. It is here that the last rites and final preparation of the body would occur before being taken on the Last Journey.

In the 3 days after death, the deceased would remain inside the home, to be visited by family, friends and colleagues to pay their respects. During this period the Madang acts as the place where these people gather to eat, greet each other, and grieve for the departed. It is suggested that this socialising allows the bereaved to form a collective identity for the deceased, and so externalise their own personal relationship with that person.

Having paid their respects in the Charnel House the social aspect of Korean bereavement is played out within the Madang beyond. Food and drink is served, shelter is given and respite is provided in the Memorial Shelters bordering the Madang.

These Shelters belong later in complex programme as housers of anniversarial rites, but here have the addition function of linking two points in the bereavement process. So here the newly departed are mourned, so too the long departed - back through the past and forwards into he future

PROGRAMATIC ISOMETRIC / Bear Witness / Charnel House
1 Entrance Hall, 2 Charnel House, 3 Mortuary, 4 Receival Yard, 5 Memorial Complex Storage, 6 Up towards Madang, 7 Pedestrian access from ground