I'd like to tell you a story about death and architecture.
Rada bi vam povedala zgodbo o smrti in arhitekturi.
A hundred years ago, we tended to die of infectious diseases like pneumonia, that, if they took hold, would take us away quite quickly. We tended to die at home, in our own beds, looked after by family, although that was the default option because a lot of people lacked access to medical care.
Pred stotimi leti smo umirali zaradi bolezni, kot je pljučnica. Če smo zboleli, smo tudi kmalu umrli. Umirali smo doma, na domači postelji v krogu družine. Drugače ni šlo, saj večina ni imela dostopa do zdravstvene oskrbe.
And then in the 20th century a lot of things changed. We developed new medicines like penicillin so we could treat those infectious diseases. New medical technologies like x-ray machines were invented. And because they were so big and expensive, we needed large, centralized buildings to keep them in, and they became our modern hospitals.
V 20. stoletju se stvari spremenijo. Razvili smo penicilin, da smo lahko zdravili bolezni. Izumili smo nove naprave, kot je rentgen. A te naprave so bile velike in drage, in zato smo potrebovali centralizirane stavbe, ki so postale današnje bolnišnice.
After the Second World War, a lot of countries set up universal healthcare systems so that everyone who needed treatment could get it. The result was that lifespans extended from about 45 at the start of the century to almost double that today. The 20th century was this time of huge optimism about what science could offer, but with all of the focus on life, death was forgotten, even as our approach to death changed dramatically.
Po 2. svetovni vojni so države uvedle univerzalno zdravstveno zavarovanje, tako je imel vsak dostop do oskrbe. Življenjska doba se je od začetka prejšnjega stoletja podvojila. 20. stoletje je bil čas velikega optimizma glede znanosti, a zaradi osredotočenosti na življenje, je bila smrt pozabljena, spremenil se je tudi naš pristop do nje.
Now, I'm an architect, and for the past year and a half I've been looking at these changes and at what they mean for architecture related to death and dying. We now tend to die of cancer and heart disease, and what that means is that many of us will have a long period of chronic illness at the end of our lives. During that period, we'll likely spend a lot of time in hospitals and hospices and care homes.
Sem arhitektka in v preteklem letu in pol sem opazovala te spremembe, kaj pomenijo za arhitekturo v povezavi s smrtjo in umiranjem. Sedaj umiramo zaradi raka in srčnih bolezni, to pa pomeni dolga obdobja kronične bolezni ob koncu našega življenja. Med tem obdobjem bomo veliko časa preživeli v bolnišnicah, hospicih in domovih za oskrbo.
Now, we've all been in a modern hospital. You know those fluorescent lights and the endless corridors and those rows of uncomfortable chairs. Hospital architecture has earned its bad reputation. But the surprising thing is, it wasn't always like this.
Vsi smo že bili v sodobni bolnišnici. Fluorescentne luči, neskončni hodniki, in nešteto neudobnih stolov. Arhitektura bolnišnic si zasluži slab sloves. Presenetljivo pa je, da vedno ni bilo tako.
This is L'Ospedale degli Innocenti, built in 1419 by Brunelleschi, who was one of the most famous and influential architects of his time. And when I look at this building and then think about hospitals today, what amazes me is this building's ambition. It's just a really great building. It has these courtyards in the middle so that all of the rooms have daylight and fresh air, and the rooms are big and they have high ceilings, so they just feel more comfortable to be in. And it's also beautiful. Somehow, we've forgotten that that's even possible for a hospital.
To je Bolnišnica nedolžnih, leta 1419 jo je zgradil Brunelleschi, eden najbolj znanih in najvplivnejših arhitektov tistega časa. Ko pogledam to stavbo in pomislim na današnje bolnišnice, me začudi ambicija stavbe. Čudovita stavba. Dvorišča na sredini, tako ima vsaka soba dnevno svetlobo in svež zrak, velike sobe z visokimi stropi, v njih se pač počutiš bolj udobno. Pa še lepo je. Nekako smo pozabili, da obstaja ta možnost za bolnišnice.
Now, if we want better buildings for dying, then we have to talk about it, but because we find the subject of death uncomfortable, we don't talk about it, and we don't question how we as a society approach death. One of the things that surprised me most in my research, though, is how changeable attitudes actually are. This is the first crematorium in the U.K., which was built in Woking in the 1870s. And when this was first built, there were protests in the local village. Cremation wasn't socially acceptable, and 99.8 percent of people got buried. And yet, only a hundred years later, three quarters of us get cremated. People are actually really open to changing things if they're given the chance to talk about them.
Če želimo boljše stavbe za umirajoče, se moramo o tem pogovarjati, a ker nam je ta tema neprijetna, se ne pogovarjamo in ne sprašujemo, kako družba pristopa do smrti. Pri moji raziskavi pa me je najbolj presenetilo, kako zlahka lahko spremenimo odnos. To je prvi krematorij v Veliki Britaniji, zgrajen v letih 1870 v Wokingu. Ko je bil zgrajen, so vaščani protestirali. Sežig je bil družbeno nesprejemljiv, pokopanih je bilo 99,8 odstotka ljudi. A le sto let kasneje se 75 odstotkov ljudi odloči za žaro. Ljudje so do sprememb odprti, če imajo možnost se o njih pogovoriti.
So this conversation about death and architecture was what I wanted to start when I did my first exhibition on it in Venice in June, which was called "Death in Venice." It was designed to be quite playful so that people would literally engage with it. This is one of our exhibits, which is an interactive map of London that shows just how much of the real estate in the city is given over to death and dying, and as you wave your hand across the map, the name of that piece of real estate, the building or cemetery, is revealed. Another of our exhibits was a series of postcards that people could take away with them. And they showed people's homes and hospitals and cemeteries and mortuaries, and they tell the story of the different spaces that we pass through on either side of death. We wanted to show that where we die is a key part of how we die.
Ta pogovor o smrti in arhitekturi je bil cilj moje prve razstave junija v Benetkah z naslovom "Smrt v Benetkah". Zastavljena je bila dokaj igrivo, tako da bi pritegnila ljudi. Del razstave je bil interaktivni zemljevid Londona, ki kaže koliko nepremičnin je predanih smrti in umiranju. Ko pomahate z roko preko zemljevida, se izpiše ime stavbe ali pokopališča. Drugi del razstave so bile razglednice, ki so jih ljudje lahko vzeli. Prikazovale so domove, bolnišnice, pokopališča in mrtvašnice. Govorile so zgodbo o različnih prostorih, skozi katere gremo pred in po smrti. Želeli smo pokazati, da je kraj, kjer umremo, ključen del smrti.
Now, the strangest thing was the way that visitors reacted to the exhibition, especially the audio-visual works. We had people dancing and running and jumping as they tried to activate the exhibits in different ways, and at a certain point they would kind of stop and remember that they were in an exhibition about death, and that maybe that's not how you're supposed to act. But actually, I would question whether there is one way that you're supposed to act around death, and if there's not, I'd ask you to think about what you think a good death is, and what you think that architecture that supports a good death might be like, and mightn't it be a little less like this and a little more like this?
Najbolj zanimivi so bili odzivi obiskovalcev razstave, še posebej na avdio-vizualne dele. Ljudje so plesali, tekli in skakali, ko so skušali sprožiti del razstave, in kar naenkrat se ustavijo, ker se spomnijo, da so na razstavi o smrti, in da morda tako vedenje ni primerno. A zanima me, če obstaja določen način, kako se vesti okoli smrti. In če ga ni, razmislite o tem, kaj je dobra smrt, in kako je videti arhitektura, ki podpira dobro smrt. Je morda manj podobna temu in bolj temu?
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)