In a month’s time, the people of New Zealand will move another step forward from the trauma of the twin shootings that took place six months ago in two mosques in Christchurch. The New Zealand Government has planned a special cemetery where a memorial each will be installed in loving memory of the 51 people who were killed in the ghastly incidents.
With the installations, a young boy in faraway Madurai would make his silent contribution to the act of remembrance and the cultural heritage of the Kiwis. It was in May this year that architect Sumanth Ram bagged the work of his lifetime and last week he dispatched 51 tombstones to his client in Christchurch. “It took me 45 days to complete them all. Of the lot, 39 are identical to a low lying desk. The others vary in height as per the request of the families,” says the 23-year-old.
The tombstones have been shaped in polished black granite and designed in line with how people experience memorials. Ethics of his job demand he shares no details till the cemetery is unveiled as a war memorial. “Memorials are extremely private forums for remembering the loved ones,” he says.
As a professional, he, however, understands how architecture for the dead are more than just granite monuments. “It is a place to reflect upon the past in order to move on to a better future and so architects are no longer discreet in their designs. Spaces for the dead are not meant to be mournful but of beauty and intrigue,” says the gold medallist and the best outgoing student of class 2017 of the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai.
Sumanth shocked his parents, peers and teachers when he decided to do his dissertation on cemetery as dwellings. “It is a fascinating study and I am still learning,” he says, “Each country has its own specifications, colour choice, shape and size.” Burial grounds, cemeteries and memorials are social urban spaces where people congregate to pause and think,” he says.
As part of his research when he studied the stretch of Marina beach in Chennai and the 17 monuments it holds, Sumanth says he was amazed to see how public spaces grow around monuments. The fact that architects world over are rethinking death to alter mourning experiences led him to the niche creativity. “I am a person with no boundaries and see design as a collective form of art rhetoric where everything is well-knit. I just observe and absorb,” says Sumanth, whose love for music, art, and photography remain as strong as his passion for core designs.
“To me, design is not just about buildings or products but more about the form, function and feel. I look at the soul of the space,” he adds. Fortunate to have trained under the renowned Sri Lankan architect Anjalendran, Sumanth says it taught him a lifetime’s education. “His approach to everything, from skills and etiquettes, luxury and lifestyle, perfection and discipline makes me what I am today,” says Sumanth, who also briefly joined the NIFT in Chennai and gained experience working on music studios of celebrities, homes and workplaces of Kollywood stars and also worked as the styling and art director for one of the seasons of the Super Singer reality show on Vijay TV among other serials.
His father R Sriram has been a long time manufacturer of artefacts and accessories for columbariams and mausoleums. He is known for refurbishing many churches in America, landscaped gardening and has also done stone carved logos for sports stadiums in London. “But I have turned to memorials,” smiles Sumanth, who now puts his creativity into designing and manufacturing headstones, bases, kerb sets, posts, pots and vases. The tombstones he has made in the last two years have become part of the local culture across the US, Europe, Russia and Japan. There is not much of an Indian market for these memorials though but global demand is on the rise, he says.
While granite is the most popular material for memorials, Sumanth imports the stone from different regions of the country and the world. He also works with wood but says people have their preferences. For instance, Americans prefer tombstones in red while Germans like it in baby blue. The expensive blue pearl granite from Norway is the choice of the rich and the famous.
“I make memories in whatever I do,” says Sumanth and believes that aesthetics cannot be divided into good or bad. It is something that is intrinsic to our culture. Likewise, architecture for the dead “keeps their memories alive, and therefore, there has to be a dignified beauty in it,” he says.
