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July 2004 YB News
By Michael T. Baklarz
Cremation has been the main reason behind the growth of columbariums. A number of other important factors, such as effective use of space, design advances and value for money, will further propel columbariums as a major memorialization option.
Columbariums began to gain wider acceptance with the growth of cremation especially from the 1980s and 1990s. During these decades columbariums were promoted as part of community mausoleums in which wall sections with cremation niches were featured distinctly from crypts.
Columbariums were also positioned outside community mausoleums or in certain cemetery sections. Originally, most of these structures looked like large oblong granite blocks with niche fronts without many embellishments or outstanding design features. This is completely changing now. Cemeteries and families are looking to columbariums as architecturally designed structures that can provide considerable esthetic beauty and personalization opportunities.
Columbariums with arches, decorative buttresses and fenestration motifs that look like Southwestern or Spanish missions, classical Roman or Greek structures or art-deco structures are now being developed for cemeteries. The functionality of columbariums is also appealing to both cemeteries and environmentally minded families who are increasingly attaching more importance to how memorialization can effectively incorporate and maximize usage of space with design.
Columbariums can double as beautifully designed entrances or be featured as walls separating cemetery sections or even be landscaped like retainer-like walls serving both design and structural purposes. Columbariums can be designed to suit countless personalization needs and themes relating to wars, hobbies, lifestyles, sports, landscapes and spiritual beliefs. Whether featured as cemetery entrances, walls in a landscaped setting lining walkways or delineating sections in a cemetery, or as beautiful stand-alone structures, the wide range of design opportunities and functional applications make columbariums an ideal memorialization option for the 21st century.
More columbariums are also being retrofitted on interior walls of churches, bringing the bereaved in the same room of worship with loved ones. Because columbariums are modular in design and construction and project only about 10 inches from a wall, they can be fitted virtually anywhere inside a church, including the church vestibule, a hall, a rear wall in the sanctuary, an alcove, transept, or in a small room or closet that can open up to be a small chapel. Design configurations for columbariums in larger chapels are limitless.
Although there are issues preventing columbariums from being built in civic or community structures such as libraries, government agencies and universities - out of fear that such buildings may be torn down or replaced by other structures - the possibility of columbariums and memorialization gaining acceptance in non-religious and non-cemetery structures in the future is something that can't be totally ruled out.
This presents an opportunity for cemeteries as well. Most families will always want their loved ones to rest in a secured or sacred cemetery. But cemeteries can offer loved ones' remains to be additionally interred in columbariums in other structures and institutions - with permission from civic institutions and other organizations - to suit the personalization wishes of the memorialized and families.
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Michael T. Baklarz is vice president of business development for the Memorial Group of the Cold Spring Granite Co., a leading fabricator, designer and distributor of granite and bronze products. The Cold Spring Granite Memorial Group offers the broadest line of memorial products, including upright monuments, flat markers, cast bronze memorials with granite bases, urns, columbariums, cremation memorials, community and family mausoleums, benches, and specialty cemetery features. For more information, visit www.coldspringgranite.com.
Michael T. Baklarz has 25 years of diverse experience in sales, marketing, finance, and strategic planning and is an active member of the Monument Builders of North America and International Cemetery and Funeral Association. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy for two years and completed his undergraduate degree at Duquesne University. He also holds a master's degree in business administration from Ashland College.
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