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I'd like to tell you a story
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about death and architecture.
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A hundred years ago, we tended to die
of infectious diseases like pneumonia,
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that, if they took hold,
would take us away quite quickly.
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We tended to die at home,
in our own beds, looked after by family,
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although that was the default option
because a lot of people
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lacked access to medical care.
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And then, in the 20th century,
a lot of things changed.
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We developed new medicines like penicillin
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so we could treat
those infectious diseases.
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New medical technologies
like x-ray machines were invented.
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And because they were
so big and expensive,
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we needed large, centralized
buildings to keep them in,
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and they became our modern hospitals.
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After the Second World War,
a lot of countries
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set up universal health care systems
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so that everyone who needed
treatment could get it.
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The result was that lifespans extended
from about 45 at the start of the century
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to almost double that today.
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The 20th century was
this time of huge optimism
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about what science could offer,
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but with all of the focus on life,
death was forgotten,
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even as our approach to death
changed dramatically.
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Now, I'm an architect,
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and for the past year and a half
I've been looking at these changes
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and at what they mean for architecture
related to death and dying.
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We now tend to die
of cancer and heart disease,
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and what that means is that many of us
will have a long period of chronic illness
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at the end of our lives.
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During that period, we'll likely spend
a lot of time in hospitals
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and hospices and care homes.
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Now, we've all been in a modern hospital.
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You know those fluorescent lights
and the endless corridors
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and those rows of uncomfortable chairs.
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Hospital architecture
has earned its bad reputation.
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But the surprising thing is,
it wasn't always like this.
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This is the Ospedale degli Innocenti,
built in 1419 by Brunelleschi,
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who was one of the most famous
and influential architects of his time.
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And when I look at this building
and then think about hospitals today,
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what amazes me is
this building's ambition.
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It's just a really great building.
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It has these courtyards in the middle
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so that all of the rooms
have daylight and fresh air,
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and the rooms are big
and they have high ceilings,
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so they just feel
more comfortable to be in.
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And it's also beautiful.
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Somehow, we've forgotten
that that's even possible for a hospital.
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Now, if we want better buildings
for dying, then we have to talk about it,
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but because we find the subject
of death uncomfortable,
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we don't talk about it,
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and we don't question how we
as a society approach death.
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One of the things that surprised me
most in my research, though,
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is how changeable attitudes actually are.
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This is the first crematorium in the U.K.,
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which was built Woking in the 1870s.
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And when this first built,
there were protests in the local village.
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Cremation wasn't socially acceptable,
and 99.8 percent of people got buried.
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And yet, only a hundred years later,
three quarters of us get cremated.
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People are actually really open
to changing things
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if they're given the chance
to talk about them.
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So this conversation
about death and architecture
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was what I wanted to start
when I did my first exhibition on it
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in Venice in June,
which was called "Death in Venice."
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It was designed to be quite playful
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so that people would
literally engage with it.
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This is one of our exhibits,
which is an interactive map of London
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that shows just how much
of the real estate in the city
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is given over to death and dying,
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and as you wave your hand across the map,
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the name of that piece of real estate,
the building or cemetery, is revealed.
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Another of our exhibits
was a series of postcards
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that people could take away with them.
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And they showed people's homes
and hospitals
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and cemeteries and mortuaries,
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and they tell the story
of the different spaces
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that we pass through
on either side of death.
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We wanted to show
that where we die
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is a key part of how we die.
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Now, the strangest thing was the way
that visitors reacted to the exhibition,
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especially the audio-visual works.
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We had people dancing
and running and jumping
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as they tried to activate
the exhibits in different ways,
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and at a certain point
they would kind of stop
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and remember that they were in
an exhibition about death,
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and that maybe that's not
how you're supposed to act.
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But actually, I would question
whether there is one way
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that you're supposed to act around death,
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and if there's not, I'd ask you to think
about what you think a good death is,
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and what you think that architecture
that supports a good death might be like,
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and mightn't it be a little less like this
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and a little more like this?
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Thank you.
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(Applause)