In 1986, fifty years after the concretion of Lamminpää cemetery, the joint parish board of Tampere arranged an invited competition for the design of a new chapel and the layout of the cemetery. Until then, the parish had been using a makeshift chapel built in 1940.

The follow-up plan was based on the winning entry by Laiho Pulkkinen Raunio Architects, which required very few modifications; only the basin in front of the chapel had to be abandoned for practical reasons.

The chapel is well placed at the head of a spruce-lined avenue which leads off from the main gate. This avenue dominates and visually integrates the surrounding landscape.

The wall of the chapel is aligned with the spruces, following through into a green strip and thence onto the hillside. The wall is an orientation aid, dividing the two chapels and their outdoor facilities into separate undisturbed enclosures.

Inside the new building, there are two separate chapels linked to the entrance hall, the larger seating 162, the smaller 48. There is third small chapel where the ashes of the deceased are handed to loved ones. The storage and incineration facilities are one floor down, along with maintenance facilities.

All potentially disrupting facilities are also on the ground floor. The incinerator flue is inconspicuously embedded in the wall. The elevations are a combination of white plaster, transparent glass and glass tiles which filter light into the chancel.

The chapel was consectated in November 1990. After its completion, the layout of the cemetery was revised in line with the draft in the competition entry. The spruce-lined avenue, the chapel and its walls and the hill enclosing them form the ‘trunk’, from which the various sections of the cemetery branch off.

Source: Finnish Architectural Review 1/1995