Proposal talk:Funeral hall

In or outside of cemeteries?

It is common to find these places outside cemeteries, especially in big urban centres, where people can gather in a specific building away from the cemetery, and then go in procession to the burying in the cemetery itself. Maybe it could be stated that it doesn't need to be inside the cemetery. --AntMadeira (talk) 21:32, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know any outside a cemetery, but I just found one in Austria tagged "building=funeral_hall" (448679220 448679220); so, fine with me. However, there should then be a clear policy how to treat such rooms that are part of funeral directors' premises (personally, I would not tag them otherwise than as funeral directors). Vollis (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The norm is to have these buildings inside cemeteries, but it's possible to have rare cases where they exist outside. I just wanted to comment on that specificity in the text. --AntMadeira (talk) 22:21, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know about rare. Here in Wales there's one near me and one a few miles from me, both run by funeral directors. The one near me is across the road from the cemetery. --Brian de Ford (talk) 13:53, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't say rare either. I'm aware of two, both run by funeral directors and close to cemeteries (100 m or on the other side of the road).

Anyway, rare or not, they can be tagged the same way. One is inside the building, one has a separate entrance. At least in that case it makes sense to have 2 POI: opening hours are different. Otherwise, except if you do indoor mapping something like funeral_hall=yes should be enough.--Nospam2005 (talk) 14:11, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

In my part of the US these are called funeral homes, funeral halls or funeral parlors. So the tag amenity=funeral_hall seems to be a good generic term for these. Here they often look like large residential houses. I think sometimes the funeral director's family will live upstairs. So I don't think building=funeral_hall makes sense. I only remember seeing one adjacent to a cemetery. Most are some distance away. iD currently has a preset called "Funeral Home" which adds the tag shop=funeral_directors which never made sense to me. Hopefully this new tag will replace that.--Rassilon (talk) 13:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

shop=funeral_directors has for me a fully different meaning, i.e. a shop where you can buy accessories (like a cuffin) and organise the ceremonies, as said in the wiki: A funeral directors shop is a place where arrangements to permanently store the physical body after death are made., the wiki page shop=funeral_directors says further that An event [...] to honor the deceased for mourners are held here. It's offering services around funerals. So potentially an amenity tag could be added close to the shop tag but probably a subtag for the shop like funeral_hall=yes would be better (not sure) indicating that a or many rooms there are foreseen for funeral ceremonies. BTW this wiki page should link to the new page and the main photo should be the second one (Cooperative funeralcare chain in the UK), the first one (Japanese funeral arrangement) being used on the new amenity=funeral_hall page.

Japanese funeral arrangement

Cooperative funeralcare chain in the UK

--Nospam2005 (talk) 14:29, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Funeral directors are something completely different. Now, a funeral hall being commercially run still is a funeral hall, and if the operator also sells coffins, organises transport etc. that still doesn't mean the funeral hall isn't a funeral hall. But what I suggested in the proposal was not to use the proposed amenity tag if the hall is ancillary to the other services offered by funeral directors. If on the other hand it's a standalone service offered, perhaps even in a distinct building, yeah, sure, tag it, if you ask me. For "ancillary" services, I like the idea of a subtag (probably with the values "yes", "no", "unknown" and the number of rooms - and this might be good for crematoria as well), but I suggest to keep this apart (and thus subject to a distinct proposal). Vollis (talk) 14:43, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

+1, expect that if we don't know, we don't tag so funeral_hall=yes/no, funeral_hall:capacity=<number> but in another proposal --Nospam2005 (talk) 14:53, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Amenity but requires a building

The proposal says it is for buildings, but the tag is amenity. Why not make this a more generic “place for holding a funeral”? If it is a building it can still additionally get a building tag but I could imagine these being part of a building rather than being a complete building. —Dieterdreist (talk) 22:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

You are right. And the example I gave in Rennes proves the point. Generally, the main purpose of the building is to be a place for ceremonies, and then at the back it often will have mortuary chambers and sometimes rooms for staff to store their tools (but the latter are also often in a different building). But in the case of Rennes, you can see that the building is much bigger and then they created that hall in it. Vollis (talk) 07:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

For the Rennes example, the article is on the node, Vollis is waiting for the tag approuval to make it clean ;-). I would say it's a POI, usually in a building. --Nospam2005 (talk) 17:55, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

place_of_worship may be the best fit

Note that in some areas, also on public non-denominational cemeteries amenity=place_of_worship maybe with religion=multifaith may be the best fit. At the same in secularized countries, it is a poor fit as there no worship happening, so I see point of this tag.

But I would propose to rephrase "if the cemetery is denominational, the building can easily be tagged as place of worship" as it may be a good fit also on non-denominational public cemeteries Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:06, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it’s difficult to call atheism a religion, and worshipping is also misleading in this context (and maybe others). —Dieterdreist (talk) 10:03, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Legally in France for cemeteries, religion=none by law (with some exceptions to prove the law). If you want a religious service you'll go to your church, synagogue, mosque or what so ever. So this place is rather for non religious people. amenity=place_of_worship (with religion=none!) would be a non sense here (written from the secularized France ;-)). --Nospam2005 (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

In France, I bet you're right (and the city of Rennes says as much for its place). In Germany, these buildings are used by everybody, including for religious funerals. The typical religious funeral in Germany starts in church (often without the coffin), then you get a part in the funeral hall (with the coffin, and often conducted by the same minister as in the church) and finally the coffin is carried or drawn on a cart to the grave where you get the final part of the ceremony. Obviously, the funeral hall will be more important for ceremonies that don't start in church, in other words mainly for secular ceremonies. The real fundamental difference with a place of worship is that the place is not made for worshipping, but for funerals, even though the individual family is free to worship there at the occasion of a funeral (but only at that occasion!) if they so wish. Vollis (talk) 19:43, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Reviewed version and a question

I've reviewed the proposal a bit following comments here and in the tagging mailing list. Please have a look.

At the same time, I have a question: I've seen most places of worship tagged like e.g. this:

building=church
amenity=place_of_worship
religion=christian
denomination=lutheran

I don't know whether this is good practice, but it was my starting point for tagging like this:

building=yes
amenity=funeral_hall

But I now see that there are quite some tags building=funeral_hall as well. If you have any ideas what is better (or maybe what is better in which case), thanks for your insights. Vollis (talk) 17:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Better to split in two sections ;-).

building=funeral_hall is fine if the whole building is designed as such and if the architecture is the typical architecture of a funeral hall. I don't know the typical architecture of a funeral hall. A rectangular parallelepiped?

And some people are aware of rooms inside buildings designed for this usage. So building=funeral_hall is better than nothing but amenity=funeral_hall is better than building=funeral_hall. However, both are possible on the same feature. --Nospam2005 (talk) 18:25, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea of what the "typical architecture of a funeral hall" is. So I guess amenity=funeral_hall is safer. But if someone knows a building that everybody from the country or region in question would immediately recognise as a funeral hall just based on its architecture, they are welcome to amend. Vollis (talk) 19:55, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Future of building=funeral_hall

I see two options:

• one can define the architecture of such a building, then we can keep it, having both amenity=funeral_hall and building=funeral_hall.
• there is no such architecture, therefore building=funeral_hall should be depreciated and replaced by amenity=funeral_hall and building=yes, or building=church... depending on how the building looks like.

I guess we are in the second case. I suggest to use the end of the vote to start a proposal for the building=funeral_hall depreciation and not to mix both tags in the proposal. Currently in the proposal you don't suggest anything about the future of building=funeral_hall. --Nospam2005 (talk) 12:46, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I am all too happy to keep these two things apart. However, I have no final position as to building=funeral_hall. I certainly don't see an example where I would use it, but I can imagine that some other mapper might see a chapel-like building but without actual religious symbols on a secular cemetery and consider that by architecture and context it can't be anything else than a funeral hall as we have defined it. I'm not sure that we could tell them it's unreasonable to tag it building=funeral_hall then. Therefore, I was going to stop at saying that building=funeral_hall should be avoided, unless the building by its architecture and context was evidently built to be a funerall hall, regardless of whether it currently is used as one or not. But I have no strong conviction either way and will be happy to rally any consensus there might be on this question. Procedurally, I suggest I formally make a deprecation proposal at the end of the present vote, but setting out why there might be a different way to see it as well. Then people can comment and we can see where the majority goes. Vollis (talk) 13:07, 1 September 2020 (UTC)*

If it looks like a chapel, then it should be tagged as a building that looks like a chapel using building=chapel as stated on Tag:amenity=place_of_worship#Buildings. building=* describes the architecture, amenity=* the usage.

But we can see already here if some people would prefer to keep building=funeral_hall (on top of amenity=funeral_hall of course).

--Nospam2005 (talk) 13:28, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

The amenity tag voted for in this proposal describes the usage. The building=* tag describes the building type, which is agnostic of the usage. Thus if the building is built as a chapel, it is building=chapel, which would be often found on a religious cemetery. If the hall does not have the characteristics, building=funeral_hall is suitable being more generic, in particular if the hall is built for the assembly during a funeral, but not tied to a particular religion. --Polarbear w (talk) 13:09, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Can you describe a typical architecture of a funeral hall? If not, it's building=yes. IMHO, it's usually building=yes, sometimes building=chapel. If many are building=chapel, then building=funeral_hall makes no sense (as it would mean that a funerall hall looks usually like a chapel).

In France most cemetries were christian, now non religious. If such funeral halls did exist in those cemeteries, they would look like a chapel, so building=chapel, not funeral_hall. And for others, most of them are quite usual buildings (sorry for the source).

BTW, there is no official description of building=funeral_hall. --Nospam2005 (talk) 13:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry I cannot follow your logic here. So you stand on a cemetery, you see a building, you say that looks like a chapel. Let's tag it building=chapel. Fine. Now on the next cemetery, there is a brand-new building, agnostic of any particular religion. It has a facility to present the deceased, room for a large assembly and a podium for a mourning speech. It looks like a hall built for the funerals. So you say it looks like a Yes, let's tag it building=yes ? I'd prefer to tag it building=funeral_hall. What kind of description are you looking for, and from which official? BTW, please kindly refrain from changing my typos in my signed posts, I am proud of them ;-) --Polarbear w (talk) 01:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

"BTW, there is no official description of building=funeral_hall" - that is not a problem as meaning is 100% clear - see documentation for key building. But feel free to create a Wiki page for that value Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:56, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

See Talk:Proposed features/DEPRECATED building=funeral hall for some explanation why such deprecation is not considered as a good idea (at least by people who commented there after deprecation proposal was published on mailing list) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The logic (which I am not defending or opposing here) is that building=* describes the appearance not the function. If you were giving directions you might say "Turn right just after the church" even though the building is no longer a place of worship, it just looks like one because it was built in a particular style for the purpose of worship. It's easier than saying "Turn right just after the private house that looks like a church because it used to be a church but is no longer a church." The counter-argument is that building styles are subject to fashion and a modern funeral hall may look more like a warehouse than a chapel. --Brian de Ford (talk) 13:25, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Necessary proposal

I hope it's okay that I write here (fairly new to OSM): A funeral_hall is most of the times (at least in Germany) not a chapel or even a church. Funeral halls may have been constructed with religious background, but are, especially nowadays, used as non- and multireligious buildings for funerals, and may show no sign of any religious conotation. They are usually closed and no religious events take place (except funeral) - in contrast to chapels (praying-candles, private/public worships, processions/pilgrimages do not happen in/to funeral halls outside of funerals). They are not dedicated to patrons. Funeral halls have a somewhat typical architecture (at least in my opinion): They are small single-purpose buildings, with a big ceremony hall and adjacent rooms for graveyard and ceremony tools. Entrance is often a huge door, to open up the hall and allowing guests to participate from outside. A ramp is there for the coffin and of course wheelchair users. They often provide public toilets. As they are located on the cemetary their design is dignified (I don't know how to desribe it. It's simple and practial but graceful, a bit cold maybe). I know that there are exemptions and probably many historical chapels turned into funeral halls, and that my opinion is very Germany centred. Anyway, I am grateful for the tag proposal (thanks for the proposal), as funeral halls are abundant (every cemetary has one) and right now there is no tagging scheme for them. In my opinion the described funeral halls are definitly unique buildings, designed and constructed solely for their purpose. If you are interested, I can provide some pictures of funeral halls in my area. --Alafoss (talk) 15:11, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. As Nospam2005 and me mentioned above, the question whether there is a specific architecture for funeral halls that is distinct enough is best discussed in a distinct proposal for (deprecation or not of) building=funeral_hall. Meanwhile, if you agree with the tag amenity=funeral_hall, you might consider voting for it on the proposal page (if you click on edit, you will see a "cheat sheet" from which you can copy what you need in order to vote). Vollis (talk) 15:34, 1 September 2020 (UTC)