Life cycle: in the following pages, we look at some of the work that was highly regarded by the jury, but about which it could not achieve consensus. We start with this moving crematorium in India.

Surat is a city on the river Tapi in Gujarat, near Ahmedabad, the capital of Indian modern architecture, where both Kahn and Corbusier built and distinguished contemporary architects like Doshi carry on the tradition. Surat was partly overwhelmed by a flood in 1994, after which there was a disastrous epidemic of the plague. So the authorities decided to overhaul the urban infrastructure and the new crematorium is one of the results of their plans.

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Hindus believe that cremation is the only way of dealing with the dead: by fire the immortal soul is freed from the temporal body. Ancient rituals prescribe the way in which the body is brought to the fire. It was traditionally taken to an open place, where a pyre could be built and the soul could ascend. With increasing urbanization and population density, there is not enough open space to allow the traditional procedures, so crematoria are essential. But they must be designed to allow for the rituals laid down by scripture. Gurjit Singh Matharoo has reinterpreted the traditional rites in his Ashwinkumar crematorium.

Here, instead of the body being carried on a specially made wooden frame by the closest male relatives, it is transported in an ambulance. The relatives still accompany the corpse in a procession at the crematorium, and it comes to a court where an old existing tree casts ever-changing shadows on beautifully cast concrete walls.

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From here, the body is moved to be cleansed before it goes to the passage that leads to the five gas-powered furnaces that are partly shielded by curved walls to allow mourners a degree of privacy. The corpse is raised on a platform on which further rituals are observed, then it goes on a special trolley into the fire. After the soul has left the ashes, they can be taken down to the river through a ceremonial contemplative pavilion.

All jury members were impressed by this contemporary interpretation of tradition, though some believed that it was too obviously Kahnian to merit a prize. But the crematorium does set a dignified and moving model, which offers solace to the whole community, not just Hindus.