Wervik Park Cemetery

Wervik’s park cemetery can be called unique, to say the least!
Spiritual landscaping finds a place back here, and that amid our profane world. This is a place where the art of living, the art of dying and the art of letting go find perfect harmony. Also, attention to 2 different aspects of life, the ceremonial farewell and the later commemoration, separated here by powerful landscaping. People go there to walk in the park, go to relax and sunbathe. The fact that our loved ones can also be buried there is actually a good thing.

Photos realization

Findings

For me, entering the new cemetery in Wervik is a walk through a mystical gateway. Grateful for this magically beautiful project!

Dominique Declercq, October 20, 2023

For myself, a walk in the park cemetery is pure gold in these times. Silence there is much more intense than before. Just encountering yourself there is striking and certainly virtuous. Still, the budding hornbeam trees tell you there is hope. And this combined with the melancholy song of the robin! It’s just gorgeous there.

Martine Desmarets, March 22, 2020

Dear Andy, I may hereby be the interpreter of all those present during the tour of the village center of Oostnieuwkerke, the cemeteries of Zonnebeke and the park cemetery of Wervik. It was a real revelation for us. Everyone was able to enjoy the beautiful designs created through your initiative. But also your explanation with meaning, amid atmospheric landscapes and the oases of silence that instill peace and contemplation.

Bernard De Cuyper, honorary alderman of the city of Bruges

Andy, yesterday morning I went to the park cemetery with my binoculars specifically to spot birds. The seeds of the many hornbeams are a real treat for finches, greenfinches, siskins and chickadees. Green woodpeckers and jays dwell there for the many acorns. So you can see that this park cemetery is certainly a paradise for many beautiful bird species as well! I was also there all alone and it was really wonderful!

Martine Desmarets

Andy, I feel the park cemetery is a place to be still. You also feel very alone in the world there with all that splendor around you. Loneliness comes out tremendously strong in that place. It is also a place where you can easily bring out memories of the deceased. Sometimes that can be such a joy, to experience that experience. Andy, it’s a very special place, it’s who you are, it’s a piece of your soul.

Darline Deprez

The visit to Wervik’s park cemetery became not only a beautiful day. It became a fascinating discovery of a gem in our region. The Park Cemetery is an experience, not a cemetery. The symbolism was evident thanks to Andy Malengier’s personal and rich input.

Gauthier De Brabandere

Dear Andy, on behalf of the group I must again congratulate you warmly on the realization of the magnificent park cemetery in Wervik. You can and should rightly be proud of all that beauty. I cannot put it better than in the words of Gilbert Decouvreur : “You speak indeed in the language of beauty to the afflicted.” A language that brings peace and inner peace and makes one believe that death cannot be the end of our human existence here on earth but that we are taken up into the LIGHT say Divine Goodness. How beautifully expressed …, embracing our loved ones in that final moment with our love and then releasing them into the light. You moved many a member of our … I would have liked to congratulate you in the group but in that last heartfelt moment of saying goodbye I could no longer do it and certainly many with me … Thank you Andy, we wish you many more beautiful realizations.

Paul Decorte

It should be a given that every community should have such a magnificent park cemetery like Wervik. A beautiful place where one can reflect on life. The life of yourself,… and of your loved ones who have passed away.

Henk Claeys

Dear Andy, I have the greatest admiration for your beautiful designs and executions and also respect the profound background. Andy, as a master of your craft, you are leaving a lasting mark on our landscape.

Bernard De Cuyper, alderman of the City of Bruges

The park cemetery as a green lung located between the Lys and the Hoge Planckebeek gives a new and broader interpretation to a cemetery and may safely be considered a work of landscape art.

Steven Masil

Wervik’s park cemetery exudes serenity, hope and tranquility and, in my eyes, not gloom at all, despite the fact that this is a cemetery.

Petra Beaumon

Andy, once again I must congratulate you wholeheartedly. So much beauty makes a person quiet. Can be detached from many daily concerns. Having to relinquish a loved one takes on a deeper meaning in your beautiful realizations and is conducive to inner peace and tranquility.

Paul Decorte

Andy, this week in beautiful weather I was at the park cemetery. What a relief! What a peaceful place!

Paul Decorte

Andy, I was really turned on during our visit to the park cemetery, by your story, by the beauty of your design, by “the language of peace, beyond our understanding.”…. Through it all, however, it permanently requires a lot of energy to show people (customers) what is so evident to us. Sustained motivation and perseverance are also not always evident in the face of today’s society. But . I will keep your enthusiasm in mind, to continue on my path, because anyway, we will continue to try -from our nature- to touch people, to share with people what can be so beautiful, in silence, in emptiness, to show and feel beauty… Therefore, Andy, thank you for sharing all this and congratulations from the bottom of my heart for all that you have already realized. For your vision, your critical, but at the same time loving look at what surrounds you, but even more “simply” for who you are, for your deep human quality, because it is precisely this that makes you – and along with it, your designs, or the vision behind them – so unusual in this present society… with collegial and heartfelt regards.

Helga De Plus

Andy, I had never visited the cemetery before, but I must congratulate You for the result, which is a result of a profound vision about death, letting go of a loved one. It is human-centered and the design provides peace of mind at a time when the most emotional chord of our existence is being struck. One feels the transition there, across the border to paradise, the Elysium which is often depicted with water, the sea, the other side. The place tries to awaken the spiritual in ourselves and forget for a moment the carnal, the earthly and this in idyllic scenes. All parts of the cemetery have their meaning and purpose in the story, but the scattering meadow and the auditorium perhaps best depict the transition to the absolute, the eternal. The absolute which is the great light, the total love. Andy, we are probably all too caught up in our earthly existence and already neglect the spiritual too much. The balance in our society will already have shifted too much to the earthly, carnal, the monetary, but one can be just as rich and happy if the spirit is above all this. A healthy body requires a healthy mind. Thank you Andy for allowing our group to experience this fine moment. You are a great person.

Frederic Douchy

Wonderful work Andy! The image with the coffin in front of the water, makes me quiet. The beauty of grief. The long straight path of the ever-understanding water that beckons and leads to distant ends. Water that carries, water that silences, water that leads inward. And at the same time speaks of life. Wonderful.

Hilde Verloo

Andy, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your beautiful design of the park cemetery. It was the first time we returned there after saying goodbye to our grandfather in January. It was so soothing and at the same time so beautiful to be there in nature. Our visit ended directly in a walk down to the Lys. In addition to the difficult aspect of letting go, we also find help in the park cemetery to let go! Our grandfather could not have been buried in a better place.

Rosemie Smissaert

In the name of our family, we would like to thank you once again for the beautiful, interesting and lasting memory of the park cemetery of Wervik. We are making it our business to continue living the “language of beauty” in our next reflection with the family.

Mia Hostens

Andy, hereby I would like to thank you personally for the very successful tour. Everyone was very enthusiastic afterwards. Especially the ending at the park cemetery in Wervik left a deep impression. Fun anecdote on the way back. We rode the bus past Wervik’s old cemetery. We could not have experienced a greater contrast at barely 2 minutes! Many spontaneously said “But who on earth would want to lie here in this graveyard?

Stijn Verhalle

I was there this weekend and I thought of you. Beautiful in autumn this park full of serenity and yet also life. There is life in this park and that is just what is so beautiful, this controversy. I get used to it and am happy to be there for a walk, a greeting, a chat, an observation!

Nathalie Dervaux

After touring the park cemetery, a lady told me the following: “Thank you Andy, … I lost my daughter when she was 32 years old. I had lost her, … but found her back here through you …

Anonymous

The prolonged “cozy cocooning” of winter brings great inner turmoil. The freezing cold doesn’t stop me, I have to go outside. Aimlessly, I walk nervously along the Leie, toward Komen. My nervous steps suddenly stopped abruptly. A gravel path signals to me that I am at the level of the urban park cemetery. Gray posts – neatly lined up, spaced the same distance apart, like alert guardians of a shrine – already make it clear to me that I am entering a place where silent respect is the watchword. Apparently the gray guards favor me; I get past them. Step by step, the pebbles crunch under my shoes. Every audible step I take reminds me of my Being in this outdoor space. It soon becomes clear to me that this space can only be entered by those who are consciously in this life. Your own audible physical presence and the lines of the composition oblige you to become aware that you are moving in a defined space, which nevertheless is not presented pre-chewed on a platter. The path seems to take a random turn but, this line propels the whole in balance. You stand in this outdoor space that represents the place of death in life. A representation that makes us stop literally and figuratively. The paths guide me further to the focal point. Beautiful … the rampart of water has been transformed into a volume of ice. Remaining autumn leaves are trapped at the bottom beneath this weighty translucency. Their presence continues to shine through in a hazy layer of continuity. I am standing on the “Bridge of Hope. My gaze is cast into the distance … into the future. I am sadly reduced to my own Being when my fingers show slight signs of frostbite. Full of confidence, I let the paths guide me back out. The gray guards let me out. I say goodbye with a “dead calm.

Liza Pattyn

The maintenance and construction of the tombs should also be possible: gravel roads were provided for this purpose, from where each grave row can be reached by a small crane. This circulation intertwines with the circulation of the visitor like the fingers of your one hand with those of your other hand in prayer position

Ir. Arch. Fanny Dorme

The sobriety in the plant assortment and the splitting of the different forms of circulation ensure that one does not fall into the other extreme (opposite the stone cemetery) of a park with imposing groups of plants, which draw all the attention to themselves, making it a park with tombstones. Thanks to the strong spatial composition, sober architecture and urban planning, this park cemetery achieves a subtle balance between greenery and stone, between park and cemetery. The separation between the two functions and between the different forms of circulation are particularly responsible for this. The park function is used as circulation for visitors to the tomb gardens, which are visually separated from the park proper by beech hedges, but are completely embedded within it. This paradox (the separation and at the same time interweaving of these functions) results in the cemetery once again becoming a pleasant place for the living and the city adding a green zone. Functionalism – as a separation of circulation and functions – which in architecture has proven not to be humane enough, has – albeit in nuanced form (separation + interweaving) – found its domain. The designers opted for a universal conception of the cemetery that can tolerate all walks of life. After all, cemeteries are very important cultural assets that reflect for the future this multicultural society, where there is no question of a “state religion. The Wervik cemetery is mentioned in the same breath alongside those of Kortrijk (Secchi) and Leuven (Pauwels) and was awarded the Funeral Award in Antwerp in 1999. Dying and burial are again part of the daily life of the Wervican here. Today people are already walking and reflecting in the park, young and old, alone or with the grandchildren. One comes to rest in the place where one will later rest eternally.

Ir. Arch. Fanny Dorme

Like the village center of Oostnieuwkerke, Wervik’s park cemetery was not designed to be viewed statically and remotely from a single point. From the edges you look on a labyrinthine hedge-lined structure, no overview, no insight, no confirmation, but a doubt falls upon us. Where are we? This feeling was compounded by a preliminary trip without many landmarks along the Lys River and a sudden unannounced right-angle turn that sent us into the terrain. The ascent of the funeral procession along the edge, culminates in an angle of two intersecting lateral non-dominant axes of circulation. The real intersection of the design, very clearly marked in the floor, is a few paces ahead. This centerpiece reminded me of the star indicated in the pavement in front of the Nôtre-Dame in Paris. From there, all distances of all roads in France are calculated. This centerpiece should also mean something like this. From here everything should start … However, the expectation of this intersection is not confirmed at all. No Arc de Triomphe feeling, where the axes radiate power, order and overview, but a center point where emptiness, nothingness is palpable. The focal point as a transitional space, an in-between space. From this point, not an infinite view to a world at your feet, but a view curbed by a place of farewell. This circular building focuses on the deceased. The box placed in the third consecutive center. Finally a rest. Again, however, of limited duration. In silence, the deceased is carried across the water (out of the fountains), to “the edge. A final place of farewell. A naked feeling overwhelmed me in that place. From here, three lines of sight depart. The main axis reflects the sky. But again, the axes give no sense of overview. No, our gaze falls dead into the foliage or play of light on the white trunks of Tibetan birches, the only non-native tree in the entire project, symbolizing the unknown to us. The lack of overview and view compels us to understand! Through radially concentric movements, the journey into the mysterious labyrinth as a cemetery is begun. Through the layering of different hedges we approach our goal …

Steven Verzele