Crematorium
"The former crematorium of Wedding is listed in Berlin as a historically protected building. Built between 1909 and 1910, it was the first crematorium in Berlin, and the third in the former Prussia. Its presence testifies to changing cultural norms around death in the modernised Germany of the early 20th century, whereby cremation became an alternative to burial as a funereal form.
This change reflected the work of numerous freethinker movements at the end of the 19th century, that resulted in crematoriums gradually being built all over Germany. Alongside civil marriages and undenominational education, the legal acceptance of cremation was one of the freethinker’s main goals. In the face of massive resistance from the established Church, the first cremation took place in the liberal duchy of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha and thereafter became increasingly accepted as an expression of progress and secularisation. (...) 17 metres in height, the cupola, which was once the mourning hall, is the heart of the building. Its outstanding characteristics are the octogonal floor plan and the mansard roof."
Crematorium
"The former crematorium of Wedding is listed in Berlin as a historically protected building. Built between 1909 and 1910, it was the first crematorium in Berlin, and the third in the former Prussia. Its presence testifies to changing cultural norms around death in the modernised Germany of the early 20th century, whereby cremation became an alternative to burial as a funereal form.
This change reflected the work of numerous freethinker movements at the end of the 19th century, that resulted in crematoriums gradually being built all over Germany. Alongside civil marriages and undenominational education, the legal acceptance of cremation was one of the freethinker’s main goals. In the face of massive resistance from the established Church, the first cremation took place in the liberal duchy of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha and thereafter became increasingly accepted as an expression of progress and secularisation. (...) 17 metres in height, the cupola, which was once the mourning hall, is the heart of the building. Its outstanding characteristics are the octogonal floor plan and the mansard roof."