The importance of a cemetery is indisputable as a place to recognize death. These powerful places contain memory, emotion, and even time, but their sacred natures mean that cemeteries are often left out of daily life and instead become isolated scars in the landscape. This isolation is even more evident considering these sacred spaces have been expelled from cities. Contemporary cities are failing to acknowledge death, causing grief and memory to be internalized. For this reason, it is necessary to reintegrate grief and introduce the natural process of death as a casual and cyclical interaction within cities. / Master of Architecture / Conversations on the topic of death are often avoided due to the layers of sensitivity and discomfort. As a natural part of our existence, this topic forces self-reflection and awareness. Throughout history representation in public forms have celebrated and memorialized death, one of the most common being cemeteries. Conceived from the fears of health and concerns for space, the place for the deceased to rest shifted from within cities to picturesque and landscaped grounds just outside. Admired, this model influenced many of the cemeteries we still see today in the United States. However as populations increase, less space has been available to continue this ideology, requiring cemeteries to be pushed out even further and for new alternative methods, such as cremation. While cremation has grown in popularity, it no longer reflects the same value on landscape and its process is even less favorable for the environment. Resultingly, these actions and methods fail to provide a meaningful space that allows for memory, grief and acknowledgement to a natural cycle. This thesis seeks to explore the transformation of a cemetery, reintegrated in a contemporary city, as one that accepts the dead with the living.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110746 |
| Date | 10 June 2022 |
| Creators | Taylor, Kennard Kyle |
| Contributors | Architecture, Kelsch, Paul J., Feuerstein, Marcia F., Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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