Since the middle of the 19th century, the Sihlfeld Cemetery has been a mirror of the political, economical, as well as the cultural life of this land.

Going back in history, Zürich’s well known reformer, Huldrich Zwingli (1484-1531), not only prohibited funerals in churches, but also gravestones in general. In 1525, a council decision was made. In order to clean the graveyards of several churches in Zürich, so that later only flat surfaces were left to see; only prominent and rich people were still allowed to be buried in the churches. This was the case until the end of the 18th century, when people started to see the gases expelled by the rotten corpses, as the cause of diseases. It was then when cemeteries were “taken” out of the city. The parallel to this was the family need for attention and care of their dead people, which made use of gravestones come back. This was also only allowed to people of high importance at first; tombs were very rare in the first half of the 19th century in Zürich. It was not until 1821 when all people were allowed to have gravestones marked with a number and a rose bouquet. Many years later, epitaphs were allowed.

The constant increase of cemeteries in Zürich made the division of plots much more difficult. Often, members of the same family were buried in totally different places far from each other. But even like this, the capacity problem was not solved. The same graves were often occupied once again in a short period of time which lead to unhygienic results. Another problem was the unbearable smell around the graveyards. The neighbors started to complain; different plans were made and another cemetery, Hohe Promenade, was created. It got filled in 1870, and its loamy ground didn’t help the bodies to decay quickly so it could be continue being used.

The government then bought the land of the church community (formerly used for agricultural purposes) and began with the planning of a central cemetery. The design and the whole architectural concept were made by the city master builder, Arnold Geiser (1844-1909), with a special commission created for that purpose. The construction forms were oriented and inspired by antique styles, thought to be non-Christian forms, to maintain the religious neutrality of the cemetery. The green area was designed in a geometrical style in order to get most out the flat ground, taking in elements like visibility and economical treatment of space.

On October 7, 1877, the northeastern part of the Sihlfeld Cemetery (today known as the part “A”) was inaugurated as the first civil cemetery of Zürich. The construction was finished in 1892, when the southwestern part was completed. It forms the central part of the actual Sihlfeld cemetery, together with other buildings and selected tombs under monument protection. At the endpoint of its centerline stays the old “crematorium”. This temple-like looking building is the oldest crematory in Switzerland, and one of the first ones in Europe. It was also planned by Geiser in 1877, although cremation was at that time a very non-conventional way to be buried.

Sihlfeld Cemetery, as it’s officially been called since 1896, grew with every city enlargement and increase of population. Today, it is regarded as a reflection of the mentality of that time, and it is considered a typical construction of the 19th century. Its form is substantially different from the old cemeteries in the city, where besides the church or the “resignation chapel”, there were no other infrastructures to be found. Sihlfeld, on the contrary, receives its visitors with its luxuriant planting and its monumental gate, located at one extreme of a wide avenue marked by big evergreen trees leading to the old crematory.

In the past, the dead were buried near the churches and the so-called holy ground because of their religious beliefs. Since the creation of this central cemetery, other priorities such as proximity to inhabited locations, or the constitution of the ground/soil, were taken in account. The traditional deathwatch or vigil of the body was also considered unsanitary; this is the reason why a mortuary was also built in this “new” place. A sophisticated system of avenues and byways divide the cemetery in different chambers and places. The plantation and nature it’s meant to harmonize with it all, in order to avoid the appearance of a huge corpse-field.