Memorial to The Magar Ancestors-

Founded in 1993 by American Architect and educator, Travis Price, Spirit of Place-Spirit of Design is an international design-build education with a cultural exchange curriculum. SOP teaches students to design architecture that responds to the poetic specificity of the culture, mythology, and the ecology of place. 

​

Located on the highest hill of the Thumki village, in the eastern foothills of the Himalayas, the Memorial to the Magar Ancestors is located in an ancient burial ground surrounded by the growing fields of a newly-established sustainable agricultural education center.

​

Using symbolism derived from regional burial customs — in which mourners carry stones up the hill to create burial tombs — our team of students created a place of communal reflection where village shamans could also conduct ceremonies.

The over 2m tall stone walls surround a 2x1m opening in the earth, edged with standing stones — symbolizing the sea of souls — and covered by laminated glass. The glass connects the reflected sky above with the earth visible beneath it.

​

”The sea of souls churns while dancing around mortal woes... tipping time's ancestral future.. here is there, and there again... embracing the unspoken knowing.”