The zig-zagging doors of this mausoleum in Murcia by Spanish studio Clavel Arquitectos can only be opened in one specific order.

The Panteón Nube tomb is contained within a faceted shell, which is revealed when the doors are rotated open.

Daylight glows through a translucent rear wall of onyx, against which a marble staircase winds upwards.

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Photography is by David Frutos Ruiz – see more images of this project here.

Here are some more details from the architects:

“Panteón Nube” in Espinardo, Murcia, Spain.

In this project we worked with two images.

The first one was the medieval unfoldable boards, which used to work as removable façades or altarpieces, and now get remade in the zigzag façade. Death inspires human beings with something between mystery and fear. To die means a transition between this world and others that nobody knows. The tomb is where this transition takes place.

According to this situation, tombs should be closed forever, and their doors should never be opened. It should be impossible to open them, even if you want, so there are no handles or locks. The doors insert themselves in the walls, merging together. Therefore, the entrances are secret, just like the transits that occur inside. In fact, the façade can be only opened in a specific way, almost a combination that only the owner knows.

Inside we find a cloud that gets crossed by sunbeams: an atmospheric situation that can be found in the nature and that, linked to our cultural references of the Divine, stimulate our spiritual side. That moment gets crystallised in the abstraction of the white cloud, the end of a way that, starting from the basement ascends to the intermediate platform and goes on until the cloud’s space, where our sight gets lost in the abstract and unreal atmosphere that fills the place.

Architect: Manuel Clavel Rojo
Collaborators: Robin Harloff, Mauricio Méndez, David Hernández
Construction: July 2010 – September 2010
Construction Company: INTERSA