LANDSCAPE OF RITUAL A NECROPOLIS IN ALGIERS LOUISIANA RITUALS

BIRTH muslim, aqiqah christian baptism, christening, jewish, shalom zachor, pidyon haben hindi, jatakarma, namakarana, sutak, mundan sanskar, sikhism, the mool mantra is whispered to the baby, taoism, the infants horoscope is cast, , roma marime, nondemominational, baby shower, a blessingway, birth beads, CIRCUMSCISION jewish brit milah (bris), muslim, sunat, philippinian tuli, turkey kataan COMING OF AGE kenyan circumscion at puberty, native american, naming ceremony, aboriginal initiantion ceremony into men’s and women’s law, nazi jugendbekenntnis, mormonism the endowment, MARRIAGE muslim the wedding wail, chinese capping and hair dressing ceremonies, the wearing of red, tobelo ha tatoko, japanese shinzen shiki, mormonism a sealing ceremony, PILGRIMAGE muslim, the hajj, christian santiago de compostela, lourdes, jerusalem, the vatican, muslim, salat, kalima, catholic mass, the stations of the cross, persian sofreh aghed, CELEBRATION christian easter, christmas, jewish, hanukkah creole mardi gras, brazillian carinvale, american fourth of july, birthday parties, parades, ancient roman lupercalia french bastille day, skokomish the salmon ceremony, chinese the door game, finnish midsummers night, persian nowruz PURIFICATION muslim ramadan, sawm christian lent, native american, oenikika: sweat lodge, finnish sauna, PERSONAL obsessive compulsive disorder repetitions, getting ready to go out, getting ready in the morning, voth and his north sea pyramid, BLESSING native american clearing a room with sage and herbs, mongolian tsam, ancient egyptian ritual for good fortune, catholic exorcism, OTHER fine dining, going to the movies, , halloween, valentines day, new years, HEALING crow and shoshoni, the sun dance, salish the winter dance, south dakotan shamans the uweepe ceremony, native american the making of relations ceremony, anishanobway medaweewan ceremony, POLITICAL democracy, voting, elections, debates, chinese dynasty eating rules, nazi kristallnacht, ATONEMENT christian, confession, jewish yom kippur, SUPPLICATION miri, rain making ritual, lakota sioux, pipe ceremony, japan seasonal festivals, PUNISHMENT islamic stoning, contemporary self mutilation, british caning/paddling, pancultural castration, ancient greece ostricism, ancient rome cruxifixion, gladitorial fights, american the last meal, the last words, the walk to the execution,19th century america, public hangings, medieval germany Theater des Schreckens, medieval florence, tavolette, SACRIFICE muslim zaket, buddhist dana CONNECTION american indian, the ghost dance, the spirit quest, japan the tea ceremony, atikum Jurema, Torè, amazonian ayahuasca, chinese dances, stonehenge studies of the soltices, aboriginal walkabouts, christian/jewish circumambulation of jericho, yoga, fraternities hazing, buddhist puja, DEATH catholic last rites, modern the removal of breathing tubes, native american death vigil, american funerals, cremations, wakes, the wearing of black, ancient egyptian mumification, zoroastrians, left the bodies to rot or be eaten by vultures, kamchatkan indians, dogs consume the dead, zulu, burn the belongings of the dead, neolithic man buried dead with posessions, calatians, canabalism, hindi suttee, ancient fiji, strangulation of a man’s wives and slaves, japan, hara kiri by slaves, african the sacrafice of dogs, horses, and slaves, cochieans buried women, but suspended men from trees., the ghonds buried women but cremated men, the bongas buried men with their faces to the north and women with their faces to the south, peruvians, mumification, gurmanceba kululi bu’mpo, ancient greeks buried the dead with a coin on the eyes and honey cake, ancient romans, cremation, babylonians perserved bodies in wax, native american the aduha, chinese the wearing of white, nazi ceremony for the war dead, mormonism babtism of the dead, persian hamaspathmaedaya, siroza, sal, roza, japanese seppuku… EMILY BRUDENELL PROFESSOR IRENE KEIL THESIS FALL 2007 TULANE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE CONTENTS thesis statement 1 narrative 2 proposal 8 program 12 site 16 case studies 19 bibliography 36 to be pursued 49 THESIS STATEMENT The necropolis has always lain dormant receiving the dead and the living alike, collecting the layers of memory and event. The ritual found within the cemetery is fundamental, to its meaning and function, and yet is not expressed. How can rituals of the living, latent yet imperative, serve to generate the city of the dead?

INTRODUCTION This investigation began as an instinctual curiosity in cemeteries. As projects that hovered somewhere between landscape and built form, somewhere between rationality and intuition, they covered the fundamental question of life and death with powerful form, and intense symbolism. The poetic elements or experience of Carlo Scarpa’s Brion cemetery, or the surreal images, cropped from a dream, of the Ossuary of San Cataldo by Aldo Rossi, are appealing, evocative projects. However cemeteries are also places of procession and event, they allow the inscription of memory through ritual. It is in these rituals a cemetery is alive, without them the living do not access the dead, and the necropolis is an empty shell.

Since the beginning of human civilization there have been rituals associated with the dead. In fact these rituals define the very start of ‘modern’ man. At this last undefeatable stage of life, how a society perceives not only death but also the whole life before it becomes apparent. In our age and culture there are rituals observed for the dead in the cemetery. They are so ingrained within us that to do anything else would seem like heresy. If one did not observe these one would be left even more groundless. They are the prescribed ways we interact with the dead and confront our own mortality, actions important to the collective and individual relationship with the dead. How can these established rituals synthesize with the built form to generate a cemetery?

I search to extract that which is latent in a cemetery and express it.

I seek a space to not only make people cognizant of the ritual in their lives, but to form it.

I sift through the layers of time, event and topography to extract, that which has continual meaning, and to give that meaning form.

1 NARRATIVE Ritual is a loose word. Almost ever author that writes on the subject is compelled to redefine the term. Each one stalks and circles around the same set of ideas and events but a consensus is never reached to a point of a standard definition. In the works studied from sociological to architectural, most of the authors do not assume the reader is cognizant of what ‘ritual’ means or is; a new definition is always given based on the author’s own research. This is in part due to the fact that ritual is so broad an event; it has existed throughout time and across every culture. However its universal presence does not give way to commonalities. For each culture there is a completely separate set of rituals. Even within the same religion, such as Catholicism, there are differences between cultures. A Mexican catholic is different from an Irish catholic. For every culture that has been or will be, a different set of rituals has or will exist.

While traditionally it is connected to sacred rites and religious systems, it has been separated from them and now lines are blurred. There are rituals of everyday life, going to the ATM, brushing ones teeth, or going to a restaurant. The difficult parts lies in that these events could just be repeated events with no significance. However one can also go through a religious ritual and find it meaningless as well. The heart of the matter lies in whether or not an individual is attuned to the actions they are doing.

Sociologically there are two levels of ritual, one discussed by Emile Durkheim on the macro level and the other on the scale of the individual, the micro level, by Erving Goffman. For Durkheim, ritual is one of the most important tools for holding a society together. In them people come together to idealize the qualities they themselves see in their society and to confirm these morals and collective ideologies. “These symbols represent the collective ideals and morality that are the basis of social order” (Farganis 58). On the opposite scale is a similar idea. Goffman postulates that society is held together by a structure called the “interaction order” (Cahill 186). This is a structure between individuals that transpires through interpersonal relations. One sees an acquaintance on the street and greets them. They then greet one back and each continues on their way. These are the rituals we do to confirm both our place and other’s in society. It is when these small rituals are interrupted that chaos enters our lives. If we greet an acquaintance and they do not purposefully greet one back, our place in society is suspect. There is a fragile bond between individuals in that in every interaction society is created again through ritual.

In the larger macro sense of ritual there are political implications. Rituals can be created to further a regime or enhance an ideology. In Nazi Germany this was quite common as well as in Soviet Russia. According to Paul Hollander in his review of The Rites of Rulers rituals are used like propaganda but are more effective in another sense as they have control over the actual movements and bodies

2 of state power, filtering into the very souls of the newly converted communists. Some of the rituals instigated include “major life cycle rituals such as the birth rite, wedding rite, and funeral rite” as well as ““rituals of initiation into various social and political collectives,” such as communist youth organizations, schools, the armed forces, and the passport rituals (or full citizenship), when, at the age of sixteen, Soviet citizens receive their internal passport or identity card” (Hollander 288). The Soviet machine imposed rituals as a form of control into every aspect of the populace. While they were meant to replace those rituals of the previous state, they also replaced those of religion, effectively creating a secular religion. However these rituals were forced, and of course the Soviet regime has fallen. It is interesting that in Ritual Rites it is noted that the prevalence of governmental rituals was increased during the 1960s when the ideology of the state was starting to break down. But because of the false nature of them, and the hollowness of the actions, not even ritual could save a dying state.

There is also the distinction to be made between what ritual is and what ritual does. Ritual is an event that may or may not occur within a specific place. It is often repetitive, and the participants know of the outcome before the event occurs. The role one plays, the events to transpire, and the goal of the ceremony are all predetermined. Not only are they predetermined but also they are profane actions that have been sanctified. There is nothing done that could not be done outside of the ritual. Taboos exist to keep certain actions or objects free from the taint of the profane world, but in actuality none of the actions or objects are of actual sacred determination. By following these profane set of actions, an emotional response is sought and can be achieved. Ritual then touches on the subconscious through the emotional reaction. If the emotional reaction does not take place, ritual will not happen. To illicit or activate participation, the subconscious, and the primitive is sought through the phenomenological.

What ritual does is create an event that in the flow of our lives slows time down. It is a pause, it is a void. It creates this space in time for awareness, binding each of us to our fellow participants and to society in the face of the awesomeness of the universe. While one is most likely to feel a sense of place within a group setting, an individual ritual also provides this condition. Someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder has rituals they cannot exist without. They order their existence against a chaos the rest of us cannot even perceive. Ritual is about being mindful of the larger picture, the cosmos, and the ordering of our lives in response to it. It is a chance to be connected and to be orientated to ones place in society, the universe, and in one’s own life. However it does not require the expressive thought, “I am performing a ritual,” it only requires a transformation. Ritual then straddles the Aboriginal womanhood ceremony, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Superbowl.

3 RITUAL IN AMERICA: LOST AND FOUND What is a modern ritual? In such a divergent culture as America, where does one find the type of order and meaning we presume in the Egyptian temples or the monoliths of Stonehenge? By comparing ourselves to these cultures we mislead ourselves. Ritual exists in our society; we would not be here without it. Some may say there is disconnection in our society that had led to a ‘blasé’ attitude, and that this loss of ritual is detrimental to our psyche as humans. There are shooting in Colorado, people dying in Waco, and obesity runs rampant. These critics say we have lost our sense of place; our ground is gone. Ritual is then to blame for our imperfections. But this blames the effect rather than the cause of our transgressions. Our society is not perfect, but ritual is a result of the perfections and imperfections found within us. It is a representation of us and like any representation it is not reality, and cannot by itself alter that reality. Ritual may serve to aid in social revolution, but like a brand or slogan it is mainly an outcome. This is true for architecture as well, the effect both have on society is subtle, no matter how much we architects would love to change it. Brasilia is an example of how social change must ultimately come from within, it cannot be impressed upon a society. Niemeyer was ultimately trying to represent and spur social change through his striking and dreamlike forms. However the city failed, not because Niemeyer was a bad architect, but because he overestimated the ability of his forms to retain the meaning he wished for them to have and to transmit it to the populace. The city while designed for a new era of democracy and freedom, only came to represent uncontrolled governmental power and the dictatorship that eventually took over Brazil. It is difficult if not impossible to forcefully change a society or ritual without something like a revolution, or a general shock to the system. Ritual is meaningful to society as long as the people perform it. If ritual is tied to social problems, perhaps it is not in the lack of ritual, but the lack of articulation.

There is ritual in our society; anyone who has been to a major sporting event has certainly been able to catch the electrifying presence of the crowd. There are everyday rituals that every individual creates, repetitions through out time that while they seem unique are part of a pattern of larger action. Going to the ATM is a series of repetitive actions that literally connects us with the entire money economy and the Capitalist system that forms our culture. However it is rare indeed for the user of these machines to ponder their place in the superstructure of Marxist theory. If we were made aware of our role in our own economic system, perhaps social change would be spurred. If we were made aware of the larger implications of getting that twenty out, would we spend it the same? If the ritual of going to the ATM were articulated would we spend more or less money?

If one seeks to find a cause to explain the varied social problems found in America, then one cause might be the absence of articulated ritual. They occur around us, we create them ourselves, but perhaps there is an unfulfilled need to see them in a larger cultural format. There is no obligation to create a new type of social ritual, only to 4 There is no obligation to create a new type of social ritual, only to find the layers that already exist. There is a place for new types of ritual, new actions to be taken. But there is such a depth of invisible action in this country it is not necessary. By articulating these common events, one sets them on display. Each person then can be mindful of how his or her own actions correspond to the groups. Not only would this bind people together, but also it would allow for the revision of the ritual itself. Only when actions are made apparent can they be questioned, and if the ritual is questioned, society is made self-aware. In this manner ritual would be enhanced and meaning intensified. Like the difference in watching a football game alone versus in a crowded bar, the experience would be much different. By architecturally articulating a ritual, not only do the participants have a formalized space, but when ritual is not occurring, the building serves as a monument to the actions that are taken within. These places then become literal voids within a city or society, empty until in use. Like the kivas in the Pueblo culture of the southwestern United States, they are empty places within the woven fabric of the city and minds of the inhabitants.

RITUAL AND ARCHITECTURE In ritual there are, as mentioned above, profane means to the sacred ends. One of the most significant and common components in ritual is action and more specifically a directed path. Movement involves the entire body, bringing what Wasserman calls “body memory” into play. More consistent and powerful are memory and emotion both, when tied to the placement and physicality of the body. Not unlike a smell that triggers intense past imagery, a specific body position or choreography triggers memories and responses unavailable to the mind alone. In Australian Aboriginal culture and that of the rural Japanese, it is movement alone that defines the sacred versus the profane. In both of these cultures there are no sacred spaces unless they are created by nature. There are no ritual spaces except those claimed by the participants of the ritual. The aboriginals find a place apart from the encampment, and sanctify it by specific movement and event. The Japanese move explicitly through their village, and the everyday streets are transformed into the place of ritual and ceremony. Movement thus defines the ritual and the ritual space.

The path is also an archetype in the human collective unconscious. It is a shared element, inherent in the human experience. According to Thomas Barrie in his book Spiritual Path, Sacred Place, it manifests itself in myth and literature in both the “Hero’s Journey” and the Pilgrimage (20). There are three stages to the hero’s journey: preparation, separation and return. It is through these that the hero, or the participant, is “spiritually transformed” (21). Pilgrimage is a very similar condition, where one readies oneself for the journey to the sacred, one leaves the profane behind to seek the sacred, and one returns with a new understanding of the sacred. These stages have to do with the events along the path. It is through these events that the participant is ultimately made ready for the experience or destination of the ritual path. However it is through 5 these events that the participant is ultimately made ready for the experience or destination of the ritual path. However it is through the path that the pivotal meaning of the ritual is revealed; the path is about the journey and not the destination. And while the path may be designed for a specific ritual, it is a microcosm of one’s own life. Each event along the path is an experience, a pause. As one moves along the path, it is as moving through ones own life, with events and rituals along the way to mark its passage.

It is also through this movement that space is defined and segregated. From around the fire, the circular dance rose, paths worn to sacred spots gradually transfigure to linear procession. Literally the first step towards a ritual architecture is movement in a regulated way through space. By expressing each step of the process, and layering of symbolism and phenomenological experience architecture was generated.

PHYSICAL LAYERS In addition to the path there are other architectural tools to be used in the creation of experience within a ritual. They are archetypical physical properties, elementary and basic human sensatory conditions. Light In ‘To Trace the Shifting Sands, ’Edith Wasserman quotes Louis Kahn saying, “light is the source of all life” (14). This layer to ritual space is one of the most highly effective in creating mood. The gothic cathedral alone is a testament to the transcendent powers of architecture and path illuminated by light. It is also a natural tendency for humans to move towards light, we are vulnerable and strained in a dark place. The work of Steven Holl and Tadao Ando give testament to the power of architectural light, it can be mystical, and transforming. Space is nothing without and with skillful application it transfigures all it touches.

Water A very powerful symbol that works both moving and still. Moving water reflects light, dispersing it “like diamonds, it disperse[s] light rays infinitely” (Wasserman 14). Its movement is also associated with sound, especially its abilities to cancel out the snow background noise. Running water also acts as a marker of path, and is a dynamic tool to enliven a space. Still water’s, like that used in the Brion Cemetery, imparts through reflection a seeming glimpse into the world beyond. It reflects this world, and reveals it for its impermanence. Water is also used in rituals of purification and redemption. Baptism inducts the sinner into the fold through a ritual cleansing for Christian religions, while in the Jewish faith, Mikvah is used to ritual purify through full immersion into water, the impure.

Earth The very nature of western burial practice is tied to the earth. For millennia we have committed the dead to the ground to be reabsorbed and used by it. It is a powerful symbol of the renewal of life and the eternal cycles of the cosmos. For the early farmer, it was life, from it came the sustenance and structure of their lives. It is the material that binds us to a place, its strength can support 6 our cities or its weight can crush us. It is a constant in our lives; it does not change with the seasons, the day or the century. Time and event, wear it down by paths of people or water, the elements imprint their presence upon it. It allows another time to be kept, one much slower and deeper than the human conception of minutes and seconds.

Fire ‘From ashes to ashes’ fire is an elemental function in many cultures including our own. Cremation has been a part of human death rites, it is a faster, cleaner way to dispose of a body than that of burial. With a cremated body, one is spared the slow decomposition of a loved one. Fire is a symbol of the eternal, of the everlasting energy creative and destructive, within the universe.

Metal This element is of the earth but it is different because humans must transform it from its natural state. It is a signifier of the earth deep below us, the part of it we cannot experience. Metal can be cold, formed into weapons to be used against other people or it can be warmed by the human touch, worn as in jewelry. It is more resistant to being worn down by the processes of the elements, however it too will decompose back to the earth.

Wood In its warmth and smoothness, wood is an intimate material. It is a fragile material, easily corrupted by weather and fire, however it is common to the human built condition. Wood itself is a marker of the passage of time in the tree’s life. We use it for our most closely held objects from furniture to floors to whole buildings, and like us it must be protected from the elements, maintained to ensure its continued life.

Vegetation Not only do they provide the benefit of color and a connection to nature, plants are powerful symbols of life and markers of time. Through seasonal changes the rotation of the earth is marked, and especially seasonally plants are symbols of rebirth and regeneration.

Sound The absence of sound is as powerful as sound itself. Its absence allows for contemplation and concentration but also can be an uneasy experience for the urban dweller. The absence of sound is often see to be linked with the indefinite reality of life after death. However sound in sacred places is associated with the spiritual world and our coming into contact with each other. According to Wasserman “in Buddhism a bell is rung, in Judaism the shofar resounds” (18).

Material Qualities Ritual space, such as a cemetery, is very reliant upon the tactile presence of its material. Lindsey Jones states in his book The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture architecture above all other arts “connotes endlessness and imperishability”. There is traditionally in ritual space a sense that timelessness is extremely important. Without the heavy, impermeable qualities of stone, many of the monuments we study today would not be 7 here. As a testament to their religious faith, ancient cultures chose a permanent material. It is something that then is expected in ritual architecture, this feeling of permanence. Lefebvre states in Jones’s book that “the deathlessness of architecture is, an illusion” however; no matter what we build and what we build it with, inevitably it will disappear. Ritual space seems to demand some sort of gesture to the infinite, but in reality, it will succumb to time as well, even if way after its creators. How can this slow disintegration be to the advantage of a ritual place?

8 CITIES AND THE DEAD I

At Melania, every time you enter the square, you find yourself caught in a dialogue: the braggart soldier and the parasite coming from a door meet the young wastrel and the prostitute; or else the miserly father from his threshold utters his final warnings to the amorous daughter and is interrupted by the foolish servant who is taking a note to the procuress. You return to Melania after years and you find the same dialogue still going on; in the meanwhile the parasite has died, and so have the procuress and the miserly father but the braggart soldier, the amorous daughter, the foolish servant have taken their places. Being replaced in their turn by the hypocrite, the confidante, the astrologer.

Melania’s population renews itself: the participants in the dialogues die one by one and meanwhile those who will take their places are born, some in one role, some in another…

… If you look in the square in successive moments, you hear how from act to act the dialogue changes, even if the lives of Melania’s inhabitants are too short for them to realize it.

From Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino THE PROPOSAL The project proposed is an articulation of the rituals found within the cemetery, these rituals being the processions or paths found within it. There is an idea of an extended procession, utilizing the city and urban conditions leading to the site to draw out the anticipation.

The site is located across from the bulwark of New Orleans, reached by crossing the Mississippi River. It is on the very edge of land, where the boundaries are constantly shifting, the levee. It is here that the city beyond the site, Algiers, retains its land. Without this shifting wall of land, the living city would disappear.

The procession leads from the city to the necropolis and then through it. The procession intensifies as it reaches the build environment, and the path now becomes vertical as well as horizontal. Like the memorial necropolis in Santos Brazil, a skyscraper for the dead, this necropolis will be a study of density and height. One will traverse through the landscape from the ground, through the building to the sky. The building will be the most dramatic and final stages of the procession. The building will be the necropolis, formed from the earth and the dead, and cut through by the living. The building is the landscape folded upon itself. Layers of topography include the spaces of the living and the spaces of the dead intermixed. It will be of the ground, designed to eventually be reclaimed by the site and the river, but will provide an aura of permanence for an indefinite amount of time. It will also be of the river, and of the sky. It is a city of the dead and yet it will anchor the city of the living through its treatment and relationship to the site and the site’s geography and topography. The end of the journey is self reflective, the building folds upon itself to reveal the path that was taken.

It will also incorporate other elementary layers, light being the foremost. Light will be the guide through the building; it will be the primary marker of path throughout and the connection to cosmological order. Water will be present, on the site, and within the project itself still and moving. Its powerful imagery draws out the ideas of the infinite and the renewal of life. The absence of outside sound will be important for the experience, limiting consciousness to the specific place and time. The earth will be a fundamental element, represented at times by concrete, stone or metal, it will be integrated into the project. Through it the long temporal cycles will be recorded. The earth will allow an accounting to take place, measuring that which has taken place and that which will. And plants, native to the region will yield color and seasonal awareness. Materiality will stretch between permanence and temporality.

A sort of excavation through the traditional space was done to sort out these rituals. Who uses the cemetery becomes of up most importance; it is in how these participants utilize the project that ritual is defined.

9 for the living to traverse. These ways are based on how the living see the dead, how they interact with them. Why are they drawn to this place they visit only to return to permanently? There are three ways for the living to enter the resplendent necropolis and return back to the other side. There are three characters, three roads, three events.

The collective mourner; the axial procession; the funeral

The grandeur and the stateliness of a sunken promenade cuts through the block of graves. They have made it through the landscape, from the coroner, the embalmer, the wake, across the river and finally the journey takes its ultimate form. It is axial, with a strict set of program: from the front gate through the graves to the chapel and now to a specific crypt. Each step a little closer to the end. The entourage that accompanies this train consists of those overwrought with grief, controlled by the presence of those who are not and each structured by the formalization of their interaction with the deceased. People are worn, raw, and barely able to comprehend. People are insecure, scared, and dulled. The person they knew is no longer, faith in religion is tested, faith in life taunted. Each grieves for the one passed but is tormented also that one day they will be joining them; what will their funeral be? Who will be present then? As these companions pass through, reassurance is bestowed slowly. The mourners glimpse the sky, then the city. Peace if not hope is present, restored, as light spills into the passage.

The individual mourner; a secret path; the pilgrimage

It is in the smallest moments that the grief is insurmountable. When memory consumes the mind. No solace can be found in the living, only absence. To reconnect the journey must be made, the steps taken. There are dedicated days to make the pilgrimage, days of collective meaning, days of personal meaning and days when the breach overwhelms. A single person or family crosses the river, as before, following the path of the funeral, through the landscape until breaking before the final grand procession, to enter into a singular intimate opening. Beyond lies a path; those who have come before to reconnect, to remember have worn a set of circulation unique to them and their experience. This is a place of focus, distractions meaningless; it is literally a void within the cemetery, a living void around which the dead must move. This path carves its own disconcerting way through the graves, like a vision seared on the mind, until at last arriving at what you seek, the grave. It is a place for private grief, the path opening upon small rooms of solace, immersed in light, framing the spectacle of the interminable river, while close at hand ginger blooms.

The tourist; the grid; the tour

To the dead are drawn the living. To experience the thrill of being alive, to gaze into the face of eternity, to find an existential rush, they come. One less likely than two or three but sometimes in 10 crowds, the living descend upon the necropolis. They do not come for these specific dead; they are here to be confronted with death, to ‘tour’ the cemetery. These are the tourists of the dead, the living seeking a life beyond their own. They follow the procession across the river and through the landscape, but they too have a separate entrance. This entrance is also how the dead enter the building. For the tourist the cemetery may be a place of contemplation instead of memory, a monument to a culture or place, or a simple voyeuristic view into other people’s lives. The visitor in most cemeteries may touch and see and experience all that is available, nothing is held back. However, in this place the visitor is constrained, the funeral procession ground and the pilgrimage are not accessible. They are near and visible but not attainable. Here the tourist ritual is limited to that of the city of the dead, it does not carve its way through the grave blocks. It is to the scale and function of the dead, and thus the tourist must walk on the passages the dead have taken to their crypts. It is an echoing place, hard with a light that washes the vaults.

OVERLAP

The tourist peers at the mourner or gapes at a funeral while leaning upon, walking upon, and passing through the dead. The mourner recollects the funeral of their deceased by watching the one taking place, and remembers times in which they themselves were the tourists. The funeral can have three audiences, the mourners communing with all. In each event, in each place, and for each character there is an interaction with time and memory. The characters constantly interchange; a person will be all three in their lifetime. These three ways through the necropolis erode into the structured, massive, tectonic layers of the dead. This necropolis is of the ground, layers of dead and memories laid within it, and built into the very foundations of the site. It becomes the site, burrowing into the bedrock, the bulwark for the future of the living city. As it anchors the topography the building landscape grows and folds from the ground. Upon this the living mark their paths. The layers of interaction, memory and event create a cemetery of dynamic experience, layered procession and ritual is regenerated.

Lefebvre states that “every bit as much as a poem or a tragedy a monument transmutes the fear of the passage of time and anxiety about death into splendor” (Jones 180). The necropolis, a monument to the dead, turns that fear and anxiety of the living into a ritual experience, illuminating life and death.

11 PROGRAM To explore the idea of ritual it is critical for that the proposed program inherently collects rituals that it is a place where ritual is and will be manifested. A cemetery provides this opportunity plus allows for the event and actions of the living to contrast to that of the inert state of the dead. It is also a place where few other non-ritual actions occur. There is of course maintenance and preparation of the graves (which is also ritualistic) however for the user, there is no option but that of a ritual.

The project proposed is a large-scale cemetery, a Necropolis. This is a dense burial ground, more expansive, more intricate and more encompassing than that of a regular cemetery. It is a burial ground that will not only meet New Orleans needs today but for hundreds of years. However in considering the size of the project, there is also the tourist factor to consider. As one of the three participants in a cemetery, the tourist plays a large part in the city of the living. New Orleans is already a tourist city; one can anticipate that this project would create another draw for many people. The living tourist may visit the cemetery, and wish to also remain there permanently. In considering the size and capacity of the project, it will be necessary to not only consider the size of the New Orleans population, but also those that travel to the project to be buried there. Different types of burial types are anticipated. There will be small-scale individual graves as well as family style crypts. A Columbarium will also be available for the ashes of those that wish to be kept in the cemetery. Like different types of aggregate, these burial spaces will intermix, providing a multi scale datum to the project.

In addition to programming the internment of bodies the project also must have facilities for funerary services. While the word ‘chapel’ may imply a Christian ideology, something like it is necessary. There must be places to gather and hold the funerary service. There must be different sizes of chapels for different scales of gatherings, collective places for mourning and redemption.

There must be an administration area complete with offices, storage, and mechanical space. The project would require a director and two assistants. In addition one or two administrative assistants would be necessary. For the maintenance of the grounds a crew of four people would perform upkeep as well as provide security. In addition there would be two full time security guards. A place for body storage would be necessary for any problems concerning the burial. Parking will also be provided for funerals, mourners and visitors, as well as bathrooms throughout the project.

Other program being proposed includes new ferry terminals on both sides of the river. As the primary way in which the project would be reached, it is essential that the existing terminals are renovated if not torn down and redesigned. The new ferry terminals would serve as the primary connection between the cities of the living and the dead. Because the experience of procession is integral to the

12 they would share a formal language with the proposed project, the terminals would serve the public not bound for the cemetery as well. By increasing the connection across the river between Algiers and New Orleans proper, the project seeks to strengthen the city of the living as well.

The last programming to take place on the site is a rebuilding of the levee. The permanence and longevity of the project would be reflected in its anchoring and strengthening of the existing levee. By reaching through the layers of past sediment and time, the project strives to preserve the land of the living against the flow and pressure of the river for the future. While this permanence may be an illusion that eventually the river may wash away, the necropolis would be the last remnants to remain. In five hundred years, the city of the living may be gone, but this bulwark will remain an island, a stable presence until it too succumbs to the pull of time.

13 DIMENSIONS: cemetery

Individual Graves 84 in long 30 in wide 22 in deep

17.5 sq feet

Crypts (Graves plus approximate circulation)

2 plots 75 sq feet 3 plots 130 sq feet 4 plots 150 sq feet 5 plots 200 sq feet 6 plots 220 sq feet 8 plots 300 sq feet 10 plots 500 sq feet

Columbarium 18 in long 12 in wide 24 in tall

1.5 sq feet

Total: (Numbers are estimated and subject to change)

Individual Graves (10,000) 175,000 sq feet

Crypts 2 plots (100) 7500 sq feet 3 plots (20) 2600 sq feet 4 plots (20) 3000 sq feet 5 plots (15) 3000 sq feet 6 plots (10) 2200 sq feet 8 plots (10) 3000 sq feet 10 plots (5) 2500 sq feet

Total 23, 800 sq feet

Columbarium (5000 places) 7500 sq feet

Cemetery Grand Total 206,300 sq feet

14 DIMENSIONS: support

ADMINISTRATION

Offices (3 @ 100 SQ FEET) 300 sq feet

Reception 400 sq feet

Storage 100 sq feet

Bathroom 75 sq feet

Total 875 sq feet

MAINTENANCE

Office 150 sq feet

Storage 50 sq feet

Equipment Storage 500 sq feet

Bathroom 75 sq feet

Total 775 sq feet

SECURITY

Office 100 sq feet

TEMPORARY BODY STORAGE

Space for 6 bodies 300 sq feet

Support Grand Total 2050 sq feet

TOTAL BUILDING SQ FOOTAGE 208,350 SQ FEET

15 SITE The Crescent City is famous for its cemeteries and its funerals. Not only are the cemeteries a huge tourist draw, they also represent how the inhabitants of the city already have had to redesign the burial ritual for the changed conditions they found they were living in.

The Mississippi River makes a right turn at Jackson Square, the east side of the turn containing the rest of the French Quarter and the west, Algiers point. While containing a history similar to the French Quarter, and an incredible view of the venerated district, not to mention the rest of the downtown, Algiers is largely cut off from the rest of the city. It is the second oldest neighborhood in the city, established from plantations and grew with the shipbuilding industry and as a port in its own right. At one point it was the first stop for slave ships in the New World, it was here the slaves recovered from the hellish voyage before being sold at auction on the east bank. In this manner is has always been a staging area for the main city of New Orleans. It is a part of the city, it was annexed in the late 19th century, but it is separate, disconnected, a stepchild. A fire scoured the district in 1895, and as a result the oldest buildings date back to this date. And the river has reclaimed sections of the levees, eating away at the banks. For years it was only connected by ferry to the east bank until the mid 20th century when bridges were built to span the river. Its connections now are a ferry or a circuitous route to and over the Crescent City Connection Bridge.

A crescent shaped piece of land exists, on axis with St. Louis Cathedral, sticking out into the river. It is vacant, anchored on one side by the ferry boat dock and on another by the only high rise apartment building in Algiers. Within this property is a little maintained park with a faux Indian village for markets. It contains two levees and is completely accessible to the public. The levees themselves are earthwork, and the distinction between land and water is a soft one, there is no clear end or beginning for either.

The dynamic shifting way in which the river changes the site is a temporal process of destruction and renewal. Over time sediment will be layered upon itself, creating a site that is different every moment and one that will be dramatically different in a 100 years, left to its own devices. At times the river may destroy its own work, or that of people, cutting into and overflowing its banks. It could be said that the river has its own set of rituals and systems that have created this specific place. For the proposed project these processes will be intermixed with that of the necropolis, and an interweaving of program and site will be accomplished.

Site maps to be found in appendix A. SITE LOCATION SITE QUALITIES A deserted leftover site buffers the low-lying district of Algiers from the Mississippi. A rutted track runs along the highest levee wall into the distance, following the river down towards the gulf. The town hall blindly faces the earthen barrier, and the only high rise in the area, a salmon colored character, peers at the opposite bank from behind the levee. At one time a hub of industry, this bank of the Mississippi is now just another contributor to the general backwater atmosphere. Down close to the water vegetation overgrows the bank, and rotted docks are just visible jutting from the water and between the trees. Silhouetted in the distance is St. Louis cathedral and the Central Business District. To the far right NOCCA is visible marking the Marigny and the Bywater, and in the other direction, parts of the Twin Span float above the horizon. There is a sense in this place that it has been forgotten, that it has always looked at its sister bank with an air of longing and dismissal. Rarely does a suburb get such a view of all it has left behind. Always second, and a poor imitation, it struggles to define itself against New Orleans. With no major landmarks but for the ferry terminal, it lies low to the ground, gathering and perusing its remnants.

SITE PRECEDENTS Three projects were chosen for their relationship with the landscape. They are an integration of landscape and building, using the landscape to form architectural experience, and form. These projects will help to define the proposed project’s relationship with the site, and form a basis from which it can also merge with the landscape blurring the line between ground and building.

MADINAT AL ZAHARA ARCHEOLOGY MUSEUM SPAIN NIETO SOBEJANO ARQUITECTOS 2008

This project uses an archeological type process to divide and mark the site out for the building. It inscribes where the building is to go and where it will grow to over time. It also sectionaly lowers the project into the ground recalling ruins or the nature of digging through the layers of time to reach a specific point in the past. It takes over its site with this system of marking the ground, integrating the building into the site’s processes. The project alludes to the program of archeology building by this interest in the ground and the system for dividing it.

NAOSHIMA CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM NAOSHINA, JAPAN TADAO ANDO 1991

Located on an island, this building fully integrates the procession of arrival into the landscape. Ando loses no time in establishing a presence from the very first steps one takes on the island. The project connects with the topography, marking it, graduating it. There is also an interplay of water in the procession, from where one leaves the water at the shoreline to the large water staircase within the building.

RODEN CRATER NEW MEXICO JAMES TURRELL IN PROGRESS

Located on the high desert plains of New Mexico, this project has been built into an existing crater. It is an interchange of built work and natural elements, a dynamic of the earth and sky. As the crater was formed between a collision of earth and sky, it is an observatory of the cosmos using the earth. It is a marker of an older slower time, older than even the earth itself, cosmological versus terrestrial. Spaces are hollowed out and formed from the earth, a path projects through the work and a journey to experience the cosmological order is set up. SITE PRECEDENTS

MADINAT AL ZAHARA NAOSHIMA CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM RODEN CRATER CITIES AND THE DEAD V

…The properties of the double city are well known. The more the Laudomia of the living becomes crowded and expanded, the more the expanse of the tombs increases beyond the walls. The Streets of the Laudomia of the dead are just wide enough to allow the gravedigger’s cart to pass… On fine afternoons the living population plays a visit to the dead and the decipher their own names on the their stone slabs: like the city of the living, this other city communicates a history of toil, anger, illusions emotions; only here all has become necessary, divorced from chance, categorized, set in order. And to feel sure of itself, the living Laudomia has to seek in the Laudomia of the dead the explanation of itself…

From Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino CASE STUDIES Several investigations were completed in order to explore both the nature of ritual and cemetery. The first was a test project, designed to eliminate any program or site associated with the thesis; it was a chance to explore the thesis idea alone. A synthesis of research on ritual and ritual spaces, it was a chance for experimentation with a real design project. The second set of investigations is a series of diagrams applied to four cemetery projects. These explore the nature of the cemetery, isolating important elements and at the same time pinpointing ritual components. Both of these investigations helped narrow and clarify the thesis topic and argument, ultimately defining the final proposal.

ST. CLAUDE TEST PROJECT The given site and program were broad. The site supplied to the studio was located in New Orleans, Louisiana, along the entire length of St. Claude Avenue. This street traverses parallel to the Mississippi from the French Quarter, through the Bywater and finally across the industrial canal to the lower ninth ward. The effect of Hurricane Katrina on the area was varied; to the lakeside of the street before the industrial canal there were several feet of water but nothing as disastrous as other areas. The Bywater received minimal physical damage, but of course the lower ninth ward was severely affected except for those areas directly located on the river. The areas around St. Claude Avenue are recovering from the storm, but also must fight the poverty and disillusion that was prevalent before the storm. Our task was to choose any site along this stretch and to implement the program, a community center. The definition of community center was considered to be a loose one, however it was to have a community gathering and outreach element.

In this project, I proposed to explore the ritual elements of going to a doctor’s appointment. Not only is there a clear set of actions to be taken, but I proposed that the steps one takes to achieve the actual visit with the doctor could be articulated. Layered on this notion of path, I incorporated other layers from my research such as light, water, vegetation, and a demarcating wall. I was concerned with the experience of going to doctor, and set out to create a distinct journey.

OPPERATIVE TECHNIQUES In the diagrams for the St. Claude medical clinic one can see the layers I applied to the procession in order to heighten the ritual experience. Through 2-D representation in plan and section, I demonstrate how these layers were used and then through text analysis, the success and strength of the layer are measured. In the end there are conclusions drawn, and application to the proposed thesis project surmised.

19 CEMETERIES In order to further understand the cemetery type and to seek out commonalities I chose four projects to analyze. While at the start of the examination no clear outcomes were anticipated, at the end these outcomes were critical. By understanding these precedents more intimately, the thesis proposal was significantly illuminated.

St. Roch Cemetery Located in New Orleans, not far from my test project, this is an important standard, Not only is it a traditional New Orleans cemetery to which the other case studies can be compared, it is a powerful place that people visit and in which they leave objects behind in offering. It is an extreme example of how cemeteries collect objects and memories of the dead and the living. While in many American cemeteries this may be limited to flowers at the gravesite, here at the shrine, the living give thanks or supplicate St. Roch for his healing prowess.

Igualada Cemetery Chosen for its close relationship to the landscape, the project is intimately connected to the terrain and topography of its site. Located on the outskirts of a Catalonian town, the cemetery pays no heed to the traditional urban environment and is formed by the earth’s topography. It is a project designed to return back to its elements: earth and rock. With its emphasis on the earth and the dead within the earth, there are very powerful moments in the project when the living must pass through the dead realm.

Brion-Vega Cemetery The experience of this project is tied to the path. At times cut into the ground or floating above water, the path leads one through a series of architectural objects set into a varying topography. This path leads the way between both worlds, the one beyond hinted at by the use of water and strange form.

Ossuary San Cataldo The last project examined is perhaps the least similar. It was selected because of its strangeness in relation to the other three projects, and of the forcefulness of the objects found within it. It is in the Ossuary itself, a monument not actually used for the storage of bones, that a true house of the dead is created. A skeleton itself of a building, it is haunting and mythical.

OPPERATIVE TECHNIQUES To further understand and investigate these four cemeteries a series of diagrams were conceived. All four are run through the same set of explorations, highlighting similarities and differences. From this it is hoped, one could draw conclusions about the design of future cemeteries. The diagrams are Context, Participants, Absence and Void, The Dead and the Ground, and finally Dead Space/ Living Space. For each category there is a different approach, however most rely on plan and section.

20 ST. CLAUDE TEST PROJECT The proposal was for a free medical clinic located at the intersection of St. Claude and St. Roch. It was directly adjacent to the St. Roch market, a cultural icon and neighborhood anchor, that has fallen into disuse and disrepair. The actual site was an additional parking lot for the Whitney Bank, and wrapped around the existing buildings, so no demolition would have been required. The placement of the medical clinic at this place was important because of its access to public transportation, the prominent visibility at a high profile intersection, and the hope of instigating preservation and rehabilitation of the St. Roch Market building. A free medical clinic was have been a great asset to the community. Many residents of the neighborhood were of low income and many do not have health insurance. With the additional program of a laboratory and a pharmacy, the project would have been a focal point of community outreach and gathering. ST CLAUDE MEDICAL CLINIC LIGHT This is an essential element to a ritual space and experience. In this project two different types of light are experimented with. Each is used to draw the participant into and through the building and guide the procession. The first is voids within the wall and roof system. This light was to spill over the angled objects where people would be interacting with the staff, and provide general natural light to the spaces. The main spaces for public use would be illuminated, and the user would be drawn through the building to these openings. The second type of lighting was light wells, angled and cut through the ceiling. These would provide a specific path to follow and provide direct illumination to the events taking place below. For example over the check in desks, direct natural light would mark the action, and another would mark the seating area. In the exam rooms, light spills down from above, washing the wall by the exam table in soft, permeating light. In combination, these lighting strategies would mark the path and actions to be taken within the project. They would create an environment different than any other doctor’s office, taking the experience from a mundane necessity to one of a transcendent experience.

EXPANSION/ COMPRESSION In another way enhancement of the spatial experience is sought, through the differentiation of spaces. As the path moves through the building, it is not a tunnel of repetitive spaces, but an experience of being pushed and pulled through event spaces. The drama sought between wide open waiting rooms to a pinched control point, to an intimate exam room heightens the journey through the building. The compacted points mark one space from another, yet allow for the easy flow of space to continue throughout. They seek to concentrate the participant on the events ahead, and marking each ritual action as it ends and then starts anew. ST CLAUDE TEST PROJECT

LIGHT EXPANSION/ COMPRESSION GEOMETERY An important element in relating the project to its site but also to create an experiential sequence, this layer helped to define the form of the building. Two geometries operated, an orthogonal one based upon the surrounding context and forms, and a non-orthogonal, angled approach. The orthogonal geometry helped the building maintain its portion of the urban fabric, giving away nothing on the interior spaces. The orthagonality also plays against the angled interiors, giving a baseline to the procession in the building. The angled spaces within the project were to promote the differentiation between this place and those places outside of this project, they help to define the sacred and the profane. The angled spaces also allow for a more interesting spatial experience, as well as a more complicated condition of light. The angled objects located within the orthogonal wall are the pieces of program related to the ritual events taking place in the project. Each one is a different step. Between these two geometries there is a synthesis in the spaces. One can follow the straight lines of the wall and be interrupted by the action of the diagonal lines. ST CLAUDE TEST PROJECT

GEOMETERY WATER/GREEN SPACE The inclusion of water and green space in the project was to enhance the experiential aspects of the ritual, and connect the visitor back to a more primal, subconscious level. They also created buffers between the city and some of the more intimate parts of the project, specifically around the examining rooms. Thick vegetation would allow a view to the exterior without views into the room. Water at both the front and back of the project allowed for the suppression of street noise. It also marked the beginning and end of the ritual, marking a passage to and from the profane world to the sacred.

PROCESSION A strict procession was created: From street to check in and waiting to the nurses station, from there to the exam room, then to the pharmacy or the laboratory, and then finally out onto the street once again. The procession was programmatically determined and the main circulation was then linear. This allowed visual cues to the next step of the journey, with spaces revealing themselves off of the axis.

MARKING WALL An ancient device for marking sacred versus profane space this wall defines the boundaries of the project. Located then within this wall are the ritual steps. The wall serves to mark and to protect the spaces within, as well as visually connecting the project. Careful openings within the wall are scheduled for entrance and exit in a controlled and regulated way. ST CLAUDE TEST PROJECT

WATER AND GREEN SPACE PROCESION MARKING WALL CEMETERIES

ST. ROCH FATHER PETER LEONARD THEVIS new orleans, louisiana 1874 During a yellow fever outbreak in the 1874, Father Peter Leonard Thevis, prayed and petitioned to St. Roch for his parish to be spared from the epidemic. In exchange he swore an oath to build the saint a chapeL. As the legend goes, not a single parishioner died and Father Thevis build St. Roch. Still today, its known for its healing powers and a shrine has been established. Generations of cured petitioners have left their appreciation in representational icons, and tokens as well as the physical manifestations of their recovery such as braces and casts.

IGUALADA CEMETERY ENRIC MIRALLES AND CARME PINOS igualada, catalonia 1980 Sunk into the ground on the outskirts of town, Igualada cemetery relies upon time and landscape to define it. According to Zabalbeascoa, the cemetery is designed for the living, a path or park where the dead are neither marginalized nor monumentalized. They just are. The traditional Spanish cemetery wall has been set into the ground, either as gabion retaining walls with stone from the site or as the dead, buried into the retained walls. Trees play an important role of symbolism, the path is studded with both live vertical trees, and dead horizontal railroad ties.

BRION FAMILY TOMB CARLO SCARPA san vito d’altivole (treviso) 1969-78 The client commissioned Carlo Scarpa to design a family cemetery. An extension of the existing cemetery, Scarpa inserts a social program into the project with a burial ground for the local priests and public access to the chapel. He also includes a pavilion for introspection and a very distinct water feature. The project feels mythic at times however there is careful consideration for the actually existing scale and conditions. There is a dichotomy between the heavy (earth, concrete form, and the dead) versus the diaphanous (light, water, and the living.)

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO ALDO ROSSI modena, italy 1971-84 An addition to the existing cemetery of Modena, Rossi won the commission through a competition. What he proposed and what is being built in stages is a set of objects, each with an iconic image associated with it. There is the tomb for the unknowns, conical like a smoke stack, the regular burial chambers, above ground in factory like row houses, and the ossuary, a cube with no roof, no glass in the windows, and no floor. Really more of a monument, it is ‘the house of the dead.” Connecting these pieces is a processionary path leading from the ossuary to the tomb of the unknowns that cuts through the burial row houses. CEMETERIES

ST. ROCH IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION FAMILY TOMB OSSUARY SAN CATALDO FATHER PETER LEONARD THEVIS ENRIC MIRALLES AND CARME PINOS CARLO SCARPA ALDO ROSSI new orleans, louisiana 1874 igualada, catalonia 1980 san vito d’altivole (treviso) 1969-78 modena, italy 1971-84

A B

A A chapel chapel B A family tomb main entrance brion couple’s tomb chapel main entrance tomb for the unknowns water pavillion ossuary main entrance existing jewish cemetery

SECTION A

SECTION A SECTION B SECTION A SECTION A SECTION B CEMETERIES

ST. ROCH This project is emblematic of the New Orleans cemetery type; the graves are raised, it is entirely enclosed within a wall, and it is in the middle of the neighborhood it serves. The aggregation of tokens and icons is a measure of time: past, present, and future, and the memories of each.

IGUALADA CEMETERY While less concerned with individual memories, this project focuses upon the larger role of the passage of life and death. Since the dead have already returned to the earth the focus on the living is to remind them of the definite period of time they are here. Igualada cemetery is a memorial landscape, timeless as it outlives us to only dissolve back into the earth itself.

BRION-VEGA CEMTERY Scarpa’s use of water is a poetic one. He gives the appearance that both the chapel and the introspective pavilion are floating on still water. From their reflections it is as if the project continues into the ground and we have just a glimpse into this whole other world.

THE OSSUARY SAN CATALDO AT MODENA It is in ‘the house of the dead’, that this project resonates. Ironically the dead do not occupy this ’house,’ the living dwell within it. The deep glassless windows stare out, dreamlike and haunting. Inside the heavy solid facade is revealed to be a skin with a thin skeletal structure allowing access to upper empty levels. The ossuary is Rossi’s testament to the bodies still contained here and the souls that are not. CEMETERIES

ST. ROCH CEMETERY IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION-VEGA FAMILY TOMB CEMETERY AT MODENA CONTEXT The cemeteries’ relationship with the landscape of the site is a significant characteristic. How does the surrounding landscape influence its form? Is the cemetery a place apart, where a journey is necessary or is it within the city it serves? To demonstrate this relationship a series of 2-D site plans are utilized to illustrate where and how each project is situated.

ST. ROCH CEMETERY This is a cemetery intimately related to the urban conditions that surround it. Its site is a typical city block like those on all sides of it and its scale and density mirror the density around it. It is a microcosm of the city, complete with streets and abodes. Separating it from the city of the living is a thick wall, there is closely controlled entry through the axial entrance. Because it is located centrally within the city, it is easy to access, however because of security problems it must be more careful about its opening hours.

IGUALADA CEMETERY This project is closely linked to the natural topography of the site. This relationship furthers the close connection of the cemetery to the ground, a theme found throughout the work. However it is not a direct reflection of the topography, it negotiates between it and the human condition. While it is formed by the landscape surrounding it, it also is a powerful mark within that landscape as well.

BRION-VEGA CEMETERY Scarpa’s cemetery is tied to the village it serves, but is set apart, surrounded by fields. It is located on a road with no other destination, and only one path to and from the village. Its geometry is also very similar to the village; it fits into the pattern of the existing landscape. The cemetery exemplifies a tension between the living and the dead, and how that tension produces the placement of the cemetery. It’s dialectic; the dead were of the profane world and now they are of the sacred. The living want their loved ones, but they can’t have them, and so they are a part of, yet separate from the place in which they lived.

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO The project is an addition to an existing neoclassical cemetery, and does not take into account the city around it, nor the physical landscape. This existing cemetery and an access road provide some context however it pulls itself apart from even these to make a truly separate object. While even physically close to the city of Modena, actually within the edges of the city, phenomenally the otherness of the project renders it very separate and distinct. s URBAN CONTEXT

ST. ROCH IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION-VEGA CEMETERY OSSUARY SAN CATALDO PARTICIPANTS If ritual space is based upon procession, how do people carve paths into a cemetery? The rituals of the cemetery are the events that occur in it, they define how the cemetery creates memory and meaning. By using line drawings over plans, the three paths are explored: the funeral, the mourner, and the tourist.

ST. ROCH CEMETERY The funeral procession enters and proceeds on axis to the chapel for the service and from there to one specified open grave. The mourner enters and finds their way to one crypt, leaving behind memorials on the ground or grave. The tourist wanders. From grave to grave, perhaps around the outer wall and to the chapel, they choose their own unknown path. The tourist is attracted to the shrine, and the historical graves, the atmosphere of order and chaos.

IGUALADA CEMETERY The funeral procession starts from the chapel. The body and the procession meet here first, for the service and procession. From here they descend through the passageway in the ground and to the prepared crypt with the gate slid open. The mourner proceeds from the main entrance to one grave leaving memorials on a ledge. The tourist comes down from the main entrance and wanders through the trees. For them the crypts are not open, to enter one goes around the gate. Here one descends into the ground, touches the experience of death, and then ascends back to the living.

BRION-VEGA CEMETERY The funeral would start from the village and the service held in the chapel. The private entrance would be used, and then the dead taken to the family tomb. The mourner enters through the main entrance and proceeds directly to the Brion couple’s tomb and then to the family’s resting place. Only the tourist, unconcerned for the moment with the details of death, proceeds through all the moments. Coming in from the main gate, the water pavilion is contemplated, and then the couple’s tomb, the family’s place and then finally the chapel. A clear set of events is experienced, and while they may be experienced in different order each is visited. For each, the other world is touched, briefly mentioned on the passage through the project.

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO Entering from one of two parking lots, the funeral proceeds directly to the grave, laying the dead in place. The mourner comes and goes the same way, pausing to place or maintain the memorials on the crypt. The tourist is left to discover this expansive place of the dead, to be confronted by the Ossuary and Tomb for the Unknowns; they have the time to wonder. A trip to this strange monument is a trip to that altered state, the strangeness that accompanies death and loss. PARTICIPANTS: funeral, mourner, visitor

ST. ROCH IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION-VEGA CEMETERY OSSUARY SAN CATALDO ABSENCE AND VOID Intrinsic in the nature of death is the absence of a person. There are memories and a body left, but the person is gone. This void is the ultimate experience of death. It should be present in a cemetery, so how is this absence demonstrated in built form? By highlighting the specific place in plan and by the use of photographs, these diagrams demonstrate the nature of loss and the unattainable in each the project.

ST. ROCH CEMETERY In this cemetery a shrine has developed to St. Roch, a saint known for his healing powers. Both parishioners and visitors alike leave tribute to the saint, pieces of themselves becoming offerings for healing or thanksgiving for being cured. These offerings accumulate, testaments of the living intruding into the city of the dead. They are evidence of the absence of death, haunting images of humanity. They become representations of the process and struggle of the living to avoid joining the permanent residents in the cemetery.

IGUALADA CEMETERY A moment exists when the earth parts and the living pass between the dead. In Igualada cemetery to pass from the upper reaches of the project where the chapel and the mortuary are to the gravesites, one must pass through this realm. It is a tunnel in the mortuary wall, a place where two worlds collide but are kept very separate. It is this void that becomes important to the experience of the living; they are close to the dead but not of them. They feel the claustrophobia and weight of the earth but are led through it, moving from darkness to light.

BRION-VEGA CEMETERY If upon entering the main gate, one turns away from the rest of the project, and follows the path over the still pool, there is the water pavilion. From this place one can see the surreal forms just under the surface of the water, objects here but untouchable. This pavilion is set over this thin glassy surface, the only object in the pond one has access to. If one is standing, the pavilion shrouds the view, only the pavilion and pond, visible. If one then sits, one can see further, beyond the pond to the Brion couple’s tomb. It is a literal absence of sight at this moment that focuses one on the absence of boundaries between worlds. This pavilion is a focal point in the cemetery between our world and the next, a tranquil fragile moment.

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO The cemetery of San Cataldo hinges upon the ossuary found in the center of the project. It is the house of the dead. From the exterior it is a building of great presence, the façade drawn taunt over the grid of windows and doors. However there is something odd in the deep-set windows with no glass, the building is not complete. Upon entering it, the illusion is revealed; it is no building but skeletal scaffolding. The once solid façade is actually a porous structure for the placement of bones, and there is no floor or ceiling. This is an empty place, a place for the invisible, and if it were to store anything, it would be souls. ABSENCE AND VOID

ST. ROCH CEMETERY IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION-VEGA CEMETERY OSSUARY SAN CATALDO THE DEAD AND THE GROUND The nature of western burial practice is the commitment of the dead to the ground. How is this manifested in the projects? What is the physical relationship between the dead and the earth? Plan and section diagram locate the dead and reveal the projects stance on the ultimate return of the body.

ST. ROCH CEMETERY One of the first things the early European inhabitants learned in Louisiana and New Orleans was that they could not bury their dead. The water table was too high, the dead would be unearthed during floods. This gave way to the tradition of burying them above ground, placing them in vaults high above the swamp and river waters that would periodically inundate the city. The bodies are held above the ground in the vaults, each one a separate house.

IGUALADA CEMETERY Like the stones in the gabion walls used to retain the hillside, each body is placed into the carved out sides of the path. Each crypt is encircled by earth except on one side, the side where the living will pass through. The dead are stacked, in layers like the ground itself. Here the dead are the mediators between the living and the earth, between life and death.

BRION-VEGA CEMETERY The tombs of the Brion Couple are held aloft from the ground, and yet are encircled by it. Here the individual tombs are articulated and distinguished from the ground, while also being held within it. It is as if Scarpa has pulled the ordinary grave apart, pulled out the earth and the tombs to be examined. There is a balance to be interpreted, the earth will take us all back in its own time, but for now it is paused so we may have one last visit.

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO The dead are not in the ground. Rossi’s earth is one of a flat plain for the living to traverse, while the dead are housed above, in neat mechanical rows. Here the earth’s role as final resting place is denied, we will not return to it, we will have to need of it to take us back. The dead are held back from the earth, always to be accessible to the living. They are objects in their own right as well, held off the ground, one will never confuse a grave with simple earth. THE DEAD AND THE GROUND

ST. ROCH IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION-VEGA CEMETERY OSSUARY SAN CATALDO DEAD SPACE/ LIVING SPACE How do the living and the dead interact? Where are the living regulated, where are the dead? There is a difference between space for the dead and space for the living; they have different functional needs and priorities. Through plan and section, this relationship of death and life in the cemetery is explored.

ST. ROCH CEMETERY The living space is the negative space between the blocks of graves. The graves were placed within the living space, filling it up just there was room to access them. The living always needed a procession axis to the chapel, and so the graves were placed around the concerns for the living. There are no times when the living and the dead space mix; it is clearly separated. We are the living, this is our cemetery, and these are the dead, this is for them.

IGUALADA CEMETERY The dead are used to define the space of the living. The earth is carved out, revealing the stratification of the geological layers, gabion walls, and the ordered rows of graves within the topography. If the crypts act as intermediaries between the living and the earth, they hold the earth back, making the passage for the living. Where the dead and the living space meets, the dead space opens up for the living, delicately moving the person through the opening, then depositing them back into the living space

BRION-VEGA CEMETERY This is not a space dedicated to the dead. This project is focused on the living and the experience of death and loss, not of the dead. There is not much space for the dead here, the living take over, and the dead become ancillary to the cemetery, not of it. The next world, the world of the dead is made much reference to, especially in the water pavilion and the strongest parts of the project occur were the dead world and ours seem to come close to one another.

OSSUARY SAN CATALDO Again here the dead are regulated to the sidelines. They are a part of the objects, however intimate contact with the living is not proffered. The dead space of the ossuary is the most powerful connect of the living and the dead, however there are no burials within it. Rossi demonstrates that the body is not the issue, but the missing soul is what brings us to our grief. We need a place to remember the people, not the empty body. CEMETERIES

ST. ROCH IGUALADA CEMETERY BRION FAMILY TOMB OSSUARY SAN CATALDO FATHER PETER LEONARD THEVIS ENRIC MIRALLES AND CARME PINOS CARLO SCARPA ALDO ROSSI new orleans, louisiana 1874 igualada, catalonia 1980 san vito d’altivole (treviso) 1969-78 modena, italy 1971-84

A B

A A chapel chapel B A family tomb main entrance brion couple’s tomb chapel main entrance tomb for the unknowns water pavillion ossuary main entrance existing jewish cemetery

SECTION A

SECTION A SECTION B SECTION A SECTION A SECTION B CASE STUDIES: CONCLUSIONS

ST. CLAUDE TEST PROJECT On a whole the proposed medical clinic stayed very diagrammatic. The utilization of layers was important to exploring their qualities, however a cohesive whole was lacking. There seems to be several systems generating the form of the project, but nothing ever really takes control. Perhaps the most fatal flaw was choosing a program that was ritualistic but not ritualized. It was a program between the profane and the sacred. To better understand the ritual in people’s lives, a mundane program could have illuminated ritual more thoroughly. A medical clinic was too middle ground. Also it was discussed in the review that the repetitive nature of rituals would not be present enough in this program. Not many people would be coming to a free medical clinic time after time unless very ill. If my main clients would be terminally ill patients that had to seek habitual care at a free clinic, how would that have affected the spaces? However with more development and perhaps a clearer understanding of what ritual I was trying to articulate and how to articulate it, this project could have developed in an evocative way.

The following is an analysis of the layers used in the test project, and how they might be incorporated or what role they might play in the proposed cemetery project.

WATER/GREEN SPACE This is an important element that will be further incorporated into my proposal. In the test project vegetation was used fairly successfully, integrating itself into the project along the processionary path. It was most successful in a controlled sense when the view out to the vegetation was framed and was in strict contrast to the building. It provided an aspect of color and surprise. Vegetation also links the participant to the natural world, evoking a primitive sort of consciousness. In the proposal for the cemetery project, specific plants will be chosen for their temporal or sensory qualities. Ginger is proposed for its color, smell, and seasonal flowers, cedar trees for the loss of their needles in the fall and winter, and jasmine for the seasonal smell. More research must be done in this area to determine the actual temporal qualities of each plant and perhaps to find other appropriate foliage.

Water was used in the test project but was not developed. However the ideas behind it are still valid, it can mark the beginning and end of things, and the sound of running water can be used to drown out background noise. It would be an interesting element to add throughout the project, perhaps in combination with light to mark a path, or stops along a path. Because of the site the river water from the Mississippi will play an important role, integral to the site experience and topography.

PROCESSION Within the test project, this was a very straightforward, simple means of circulation. The path was successful in getting the patients through the project but perhaps if the form of the 32 building had depended more on the procession and its events, it would have been a stronger ritual experience. It is interesting that the path expands and compresses and is not a path per se, only an implication of one. However it is too simplistic for the circulation of the building, how do the doctors and nurses proceed through the building? Do they as well take the grand path? The marking wall and the ritual objects define the procession, but in the proposal I want to make the procession even more articulated. The proposal is concerned with carving the path, making it a void within something solid. And there will be multiple paths or journeys within the project providing a complicating, but hopefully interesting solution.

MARKING WALL This was a successful device for defining the ‘sacred’ interior of the project versus the ‘profane’ space to be found around and on the site. It helped bind the project together and provided a cohesive front connecting the scattered objects within and providing the circulation and gathering spaces on the interior. The balance that had to be made was between providing a protecting wall of enough stature and importance, and not to overpower the neighbors. At the height of 16 feet this wall was on the large size, it would have cut off some light from the adjacent properties. More translucency would have been good for the interior spaces. Perhaps there could have been more of a play with different opacities of the wall, illusions of opacity that might have let light in where needed. For my proposal, the wall will figure into its design, it will be important to mark boundaries and control the entrance and start of ritual paths and experience.

GEOMETERY Combining two different geometries provided an interesting mix of spaces. However the angled ritual objects could have been pushed further, really making them standout from the wall. Perhaps if the wall was broken or had to deflect around them, an interesting condition could have be created. This would have made it more apparent how this was a different place from those places normally found within the city, it was a place set apart with a difference set of experiences. A balance was sought between the normal and mundane and the shocking. The goal was to incorporate people and to spur a consciousness of otherness without alienating the participant from the space. As an intuitive response to the proposed site and program, this ‘other’ type of geometry will more than likely be used. Form of the site and its topography will be important, however orthogonality is a basic way to mark human intervention on a place.

LIGHT The different types of light were an exciting element to play with. The two different types of lighting was a successful part of the project, providing interest and experience to the medical clinic journey. A more careful understanding of the light cannons and how they might actually work would have been an important additional step with more time. In fact a precise digital or physical model showing the exact lighting would have been necessary. The most successful lighting was in the exam rooms where the concrete wall 33 was awash with a carefully collected natural light. This element will continue to play an important part in the design process. Light is a powerful emotive tool; it will be utilized again to lead people through a space and to provide an evocative character.

EXPANSION/COMPRESSION The medical clinic had an amount of drama due to the manipulation of the spatial aspects, but it could have had more. The journey could have been more spectacular, especially in section. Perhaps the idea of seeing down the entire procession also limited the element of surprise. The areas of compression might have been better longer, and more intense, to really give the impression of traveling through a space. Like the hero’s journey fraught with obstacles and challenges, if perhaps it were a more articulated path, it would have been stronger. The expansion and compression of the different spaces was important to the phenomenological experience, and will be again in the concept. The contrast between these two will again be important, even more now that it is a cemetery and not a medical clinic.

CEMETERIES The projects examined have led to conclusions regarding aspects of cemeteries. These conclusions may or may not figure into the ultimate design but will affect the journey taken. If anything they have demonstrated the variety of ways in which the project can go, and some striking similarities. These five aspects that have been diagramed are not conclusive in any way, but do provide a basis from which to start.

CONTEXT In the St. Roch and the Igualada cemetery, the form of the cemetery is directly related to the immediate context. These cemeteries fit into their landscapes as opposed to the Ossuary San Cataldo and Brion-Vega, which stand out from it, objects, literally, in a field. However both Brion and Cataldo share similarities in scale and footprint to the cemetery projects they are both additions to. In this sense all of the projects fit into some sort of context, not surprising for works of architecture. However this context is always held at bay, the projects take on their own identities. There is also a dialectic in each project regarding the distance, physical and mental, to the communities they serve. They are at hand ready to receive the dead and the participant, and yet each maintains a distance from the city of the living. To access each is a journey.

34 PARTICIPANTS Seeing that the cemetery was a place for the three different ritual processions and that they were not articulated was instrumental to the formation of my final thesis proposal. Generally the funeral follows a set path through the work, while the mourner and tourist are left to maneuver as they see best through something of a field condition. In Igulada there is a difference articulated between funeral and mourner/tourist as the gate to the crypt must be moved aside to allow the entry of a coffin, where the mourner/ tourist may enter from the side of the gate. There are three difference experiences, rituals, happening and repeated within cemeteries and my proposal is to allow these to be seen and experienced.

ABSENCE AND VOID In each work, these moments are the most powerful, they touch the very experience of loss and renewal. The evocative and poetic experience they provide also articulate the very essence of the project, and even in Igualada and Cataldo in which the entire project has not been completed, these aspects are. It will be important to carefully consider how this will be articulated within my proposal, how will the unknowable be designed? How will the poetic enter the project?

THE DEAD AND THE GROUND The ground has powerful significance for a cemetery. It is associated with the final resting place of our remains, and ultimately we will return to it for good. There are two approaches to the ground, either a conscious will to defy its reach and place the bodies above it, like in Cataldo, or become of it as in Igualada. For Igualada there is more of a primitive connection made, one deeper and more intuitive than that of the other projects. However Brion is able to communicate the importance of the person who was by restraining the ground from taking their graves. There is a tension between the ground and the dead in this instance.

THE DEAD AND THE LIVING The living surround the dead. The dead are besieged by the living, however by clear articulation of the dead space interacting with that of the living, intriguing moments are formed. Where the living pass through the retaining wall filled with the dead in the Igualada cemetery, or where the living must descend into the tomb itself to experience the dead as in Brion, or the Ossuary at Cataldo, where dead space and living space interact is another extremely critical spot to be designed.

35 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrie, Thomas. Spiritual Path, and Sacred Place: Myth, Ritual, and Meaning in Architecture. Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boston, MA, 1996.

This work examines and diagrams the different forms of sacred movement through sacred space. It categorizes, and analyzes spaces in terms of religious symbolism and faith, along with an exploration into geometries, myth and phenomenology. The types of procession are then extracted and categorized. The author then applies these analyses in case study. This book is important in establishing an understanding of the varied components that create a sacred ritual space. While profane rituals exist, they as a group depend more on the program of the ritual and less on the emotional and subconscious involvement of the participant. This book proposes that there are a set of archetypical processions that move through archetypical spaces and that these paths and spaces have less to do with individual religions but more with the human condition and the societies that created them. Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Norberg-Schultz are brought into the discussion and their respective work is brought into the debate. Jung and his ideas of the collective subconscious and archetypal characters are applied to architectural spaces. The bibliography was also very helpful in identifying more areas of research.

Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Harcourt Brace and Company, Orlando, FL. 1974.

This series of short stories, relating to Marco Polo exploring the far reaches of Kublai Khan’s empire, is an intriguing account of experiential urban conditions and events. They are stories of surreal and deconstructed cities and people that are ultimately joined in a dynamic relationship. They explore the unknowable that exists in the city, “something unseen that hums between the cracks.” The cities that he describes are ones that no one else has seen, with impossible events and people that slowly reveal Polo’s own city of Venice. The manner in which the stories are told, related between sections of the emperor and the explorer’s dialogue, constantly provides a backdrop to the places Polo is describing. These dialogues serve as a break between sets of descriptions in a very ritualistic manner. This novel was inspirational in the formation of my thesis. It provided the catalyst to pursue the experiences of a ritual, and to architecturalize the procession of them. Treating the necropolis like a city within Invisible Cities was a great impetus to my proposal of the three participants.

De Coppet, Daniel, Ed. Understanding Ritual. Routledge, London, 1992.

This work is a series of sociological essays that define and clarify the role of rituals in society. There are analysis of anthropological studies on specific cultures and the meaning of their rituals. While many of these

36 were studies of specific rituals that did not help clarify my thesis ideas, the first two essays in the book did take a broader view of ritual in society. The first, “Ritual As Spatial Direction And Bodily Division,” is a discussion of Levi-Stauss and his critique of ritual because it was based in the “profane ends” of actions. However the author, David Parkin, defends the action of ritual as being important for its “distinctive potential for performative imagination that is not reducible to verbal assertions.” He highlights the fact that words are a limited way to express the complicated and intricate levels of subconscious meaning and that through actual “performative practice” true meanings and hierarchies are established. The second article “From one rite to another” by Michel Cartry uses a case study of rituals in the Gurmanceba in New Guinea to establish the importance of recurrent themes in ritual. The most important elements or beliefs will be a motif throughout a culture. Rituals are interconnected and related to one another; cultures do not work from a blank slate at each event. Ritual is repetitive action and repetitive themes, regardless of the actual event. While I am only designing and working with one event space, a cemetery, I should take into consideration other ritual events in the city of New Orleans and America. The cemetery is not cut off from the place and culture in which it exists.

Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Cosman, Carol. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. New York, 2001.

Written at the turn of the twentieth century, this work is a formative treatise on the origins of religious, and through religion, social, collective life. Durkheim illustrates the process by which religion was first formed and how it is not based upon faith in a higher deity but in the society itself. Considered to be the founder of modern academic sociology, Durkheim is one of the first to seek answers by direct observation of a people. In Elementary Forms he studies and observes first hand the ‘primitive’ aboriginal peoples in Australia and their religious structures. He ‘thought that the essential qualities of religious belief could be best understood under conditions less complex than those of the highly differentiated modern society” (Farganis 57). Durkheim made the observation that there is a distinction made in religion between the sacred (the remarkable) and the profane (the usual) and that these distinctions are not within the objects or events themselves. The sacred or profane meanings are created by society and impressed upon objects and these become symbols. A symbol with attributed social meaning, or a Totem, is then a visible source of unity and shared belief. However for Durkheim these totems are merely representational of the larger issue: religion and its totems “are society personified, and when we worship in a religious ceremony, we are really worshipping the collective ideals that unite us with one another” (Farganis 58). He then theorizes upon how these collective ideals, and social constructs, were created in the first place. Durkheim introduces the term ‘effervescence’ to describe the heightened emotional state that takes over people when they are together en masse. “Within a crowd moved by a common passion, we become susceptible to feelings and actions of which we are incapable on our own “ (Durkheim 157). He sites the Crusades or the French 37 Revolution as extreme examples of this collective social force. Religion and rituals are born from this collective passion, and based upon its social character. Basically when groups of people gathered and a critical mass was reached the group mentality or collective force takes over the individual. The individuals attribute this force not to themselves but a higher power. The feelings and emotions created are transferred then to symbols and totems, which can then be used at a later date to recall the emotional and transforming experience. According to Durkheim it is not ‘God’ people worship but the interactions amongst themselves. This work was a large part of understanding the nature and creation of ritual along with removing it from the sacred realm.

Elvin, George. “Ritual House: Ritual, Order, Space, and Structure in Indigenous Ceremonial Architecture.” Crit, iss 34. pages 18-21. 1995

Elvin investigates the ritual spaces and their creation in aboriginal culture. Ritual spaces for the aboriginal people were designated at the time and place of the ritual. Because of the nomadic nature of the tribe, permanent ritual spaces were not ever created. From this developed an inclination to not build ritual space, as having it return to its previous state after the ritual was important to the people. There are permanent symbolic and sacred places for the aboriginal people such as Ayers rock however these are places to be left alone not to use. This article helped me start to determine my definition of ritual and the use of ritual to define space. It also provides insight into the idea that sometimes the very nature of a ritual relies on it not having a concrete site. It introduces the idea that there is a balance in concretizing ritual acts and procession into a space to enhance them. For while one may wish to enhance and articulate them, you risk erasing much of its real essence and meaning. Elvin also touches on the perceived or real loss of ritual in today’s society. He is critical of the ‘most inhuman environments’ and the ‘non place’ like ‘coming of age in a shopping mall and the steel and nylon tent and Astroturf carpet used in funerary rites.’

Farganis, James. Readings in Social Theory. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2004.

This work provides excellent insight into the classic and contemporary sociological theory that makes up the modern discipline today. An anthology, it utilizes analytical essays by the author to introduce and provide brief descriptions of the main concepts of each theorist. However the main part of the work is a selection of the theorists’ own writings. Approaching ritual from a sociological viewpoint, this work provided great overviews of general theory, and specifically on Durkheim and his theory on the formation of ritual. Durkheim is the first of the theorist to touch on the creation of ritual as actually for society and not to a religious deity. From him it is defined the articulation of the sacred versus the profane, and the importance of the separation of the two. This was a good supplement to Durkheim’s own work for clarification and further insight.

38 Metcalf, Peter, and Richard Huntington. Celebrations of Death. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 1991.

The majority of this work focuses on anthropological studies of death and different peoples and cultures reactions to it throughout time and the world. The section that is particularly interesting to me and pertinent is the last chapter titled ‘American Deathways.’ This last chapter uses the same methodology of the previous analysis but on the American relationship with death. Two paradoxes are discussed one being the uniformity of the ritual actions after death for most Americans even though we have a disparate and undetermined ideology and the second being the passive role in death the individual is assigned versus a push for activism in life. These paradoxes and the funerary rituals in which Americans take part in are a part of the “endless shying way from confrontation with mortality… [that is] undeniably a marked feature of American culture.” However the author is careful to point out that this is not a criticism of American culture but rather an observation. Rituals are ingrained in society for a reason, latent with meaning even when unknown to the participant. Especially in times of crisis people will turn to what they feel is ‘socially prescribed,” and this reveals much about the society.

Pillet, Michel. “Ritual Spaces-From Stonehenge to Chaco, a Personal Journey.” Mass. Vol II, iss 3. pgs 7-13. 1984

This article is an examination of several historical case studies by Pillet and an analysis of the roles space, ritual and landscape play. Pillet is also concerned with how the interconnections that are formed between these roles give these sites their power. The author demonstrates that the landscape and the natural forces found within it are what ancient people were responding too when they built and constructed their ritual spaces. Their environment was a part of the ritual making process and so a part of the built environment process as well. Ritual is based on the cosmological. While sometimes drifting to a romantic vision of the monuments, it nevertheless describes how even though we are not a part of the culture and the actual use of these sites is lost, they still hold extraordinary power over the visitor. This article also examines to a certain degree the role of ritual space within a city or urban center. There is a discussion of ritual spaces that are a part of the urban life and how they are used when not being used for ritual purposes versus those spaces that are only in use during a ritual.

“Ritual,” The Architectural Review. Vol 185, iss 1104. pg 54-57. 1989.

This article examines the confrontation with everyday objects found in the exhibitions of Diller and Scofidio. Through the use of paradox they ‘explore the latency of actions in architectural forms.’ Utilizing a domestic scale and juxtaposing familiar intuitive objects, they instigate a discussion of what those objects really mean and how their meaning is inherently their function. Examples include an underground balcony, or a bridge that is only two arms that reach towards each other, with a gap between them. The bridge does not fully become a bridge until the 39 the user crosses the gap and completes the ‘bridge’ function. Their work is highly reliant on the observer and user to complete the puzzle in front of them and to activate the ‘latent potential’ of the project. Ritual lies in the confrontation and awakening of the individual to his or her actions and thus their place in society. The work focuses on articulating the absence of the observer, and is a physical manifestation of what a ritual is without an engaged participant. Ritual without an engaged participant is not whole. This article also demonstrates the ‘erosion’ of ritual in the modern society. However to reintroduce ‘ritual [it] cannot be dictated by the pious authority of individuals or the past, it must be given by common acceptance.” Their work is about drawing out the ‘common acceptance’ of ritual in existing forms, it relates to the “emphasis…on architecture and artifacts which invite but do not define occupation and meanings.”

Thompson, Fred. “Japanese Mountain Deities.” The Architectural Review. Vol 202, No 1208. pgs 78-83. 1997.

This was a specific look at the public spaces in a Japanese village. The public space for secular and religious ritual was the street; it was transformed by the action taken upon it from the villagers. In is in this layering of spaces, profane and sacred, that the author proposes the idea of flowing space in Japanese architecture originates, integral to the ‘Japanese ma or space-time.’ This type of space is not contained by boundaries but by the activities taking place within it. The author also demonstrates that using the spaces of the village themselves in a ritual procession leaves the villagers ‘renewed and invigorated” and creates a ‘repository of spiritual memory’ within the village itself. The use of the street for the ceremonial procession is one we also see in New Orleans during the jazz funeral or second line. Like the Japanese village neither culture has the land or the money for specialized public ritual space. It approaches the question as to whether it is better to leave the spontaneous practices of ritual to themselves or to concretize them into form.

Voth, Hannsjorg. Boot Aus Stein. Munich: Kunst Zirndorf, 1983.

The author and artist’s commemoration of a piece of performance sculpture; this book is Voth’s explanation and documentation of his project “Boot Aus Stein.” The artist explores landscape and the primitive act of marking on it with charcoal sketches that lead the way for the final project. The book is ultimately about the creation of a pavilion in the north sea where the artist lived and sculpted a large stone sarcophagus. There is an intuitive ritual in the way the artist creates his work, and especially in the final sculpture. There is a careful precision to the actions, with allusions to larger meanings in life. It is an extremely intuitive and in a way primitive project. This piece clarified the definition of ritual as something that as a process is defined and expected, the outcome is known, and yet the act is still carried through. The work was also a very sacred act that had no allusions to any organized religion but still touched the psyche. The poetic natures of the works, especially the charcoals of previous ideas for land art, were also inspirational in their engaging relationship to the ground and the weight of unknown meaning 40 they seemed to convey in the landscape.

Wasserman, Judith R. “To Trace the Shifting Sands: Community, Ritual, and the Memorial Landscape.” Landscape Journal 1998: 42-62. Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. EBSCO. Howard Tilton Library. 11 Nov. 2007. Keyword: Ritual + Memory.

A study of the Memorial type, this article features a very straightforward approach to the function and the specific design elements that are part of memorial design. For the author these memorial landscapes are a place of designed ritual with the objective of each to bring the past to the present and to effect people emotionally. Wasserman quotes phenomenologist Edward S. Casey: “Requisite to any full understanding of memory of place is thus a recognition of the way in which place itself aids remembering. It does so precisely as being well suited to contain memories—to hold and preserve them”(2). The author demonstrates how a community is strengthened with memorial spaces and that ritual space is inherently one of a body moving through space, quoting Casey, “it serves as the primary bearer of the concrete commemoriablilia through which such commemorating is effected”(6). By incorporating the body in significant actions, a meaningful and memorable event is possible; “there is no memory without body memory”(6). Ambiguity is also considered a positive characteristic, “the richness of the ‘read’ allows the memorial participant to reenact the experience…fulfilling Durkheim’s criteria for the commemorative experience” (9). Ritual action is extremely important and several case studies are examined: the Vietnam War Memorial, the Salem Memorial (for those persecuted in the witch hunts), and the Memorial against Fascism by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz are some the author discuses. In these examples movement is intimately tied to the experience and ultimately the meaning of a place. The concrete elements of the memorial relevant to my thesis that are examined are the wall to demarcate space, physical materials such as earth and stone, light, water, text, plants, and wildlife. All of these are powerful tools to reach people on a subconscious level, to return them to a state of contemplation and conscious action.

41 DEBATE:

RITUAL: Among the first to study ritual and to set many of the parameters for its investigation, was Emile Durkheim. In his seminal work The Elementary Forms of Religious Life he undertakes a study of the creation of religious belief and how religion serves to represent society and unite it together. If religious “beliefs are all actually representations of society,” and so rituals are separated from their religious structure and are revealed for their true capacity in society (Farganis 57). “Rituals are ways of acting that are generated only within assembled groups and are meant to stimulate and sustain or recreate certain mental states in these groups” (Durkheim 11). Rituals for Durkheim are tools to recreate the original effervescent event, and in doing so to further bind the individual with society. Durkheimian rituals are an emotive, experiential event, with predetermined and repetitive actions to take place within a collective group.

In his article “Ritual House: Ritual, Order, Space, and Structure in Indigenous Ceremonial Architecture,” George Elvin ties ritual to the ordering of our lives. Not only is ritual an ordered event, ritual orders ‘where we are- in time, in space, in life and in the cosmos-as individuals, and as a community, sharing in the attended moment, in the attended place” (Elvin 19). Elvin elaborates on Durkheim’s definition of ritual, for him it not only orients the individual to society but to the cosmos and the specific place of ritual action. For Elvin “ritual expresses a cosmological order not necessarily a social or geometric one” (19). Elvin shows that ritual is a manifestation of a reaction to the chaos of the universe; it is the outcome of a search for order.

In the article “Ritual,” the author also makes a case for ritual as cosmologically oriented. In this case it is defined as “man’s collective action in the face of awesome nature. It marked the cycles of the heavens and celebrated the ages of life.” However the author includes another layer to the definition of ritual, that it cannot be coerced. Durkheim implies this in his theory on how ritual is generated from the people, however does not clearly say it. “Ritual, however, cannot be dictated by the pious authority of individuals or the past: it must be given by common acceptance” (54). Ritual is something that then “must instead embrace the subjective world of human nature” (54).

For the purposes of this thesis, the definition of ritual is broad. As defined within the narrative, ritual is an event of profane action and emotional response that seeks to bind people to each other, the cosmos, and to the timeframe of their lives. As Durkheim describes it, it is inherently manufactured by society to serve the collective as well as the individual. It is also important that true ritual is a self- generated event, and it is reliant upon the individual in the end for its significance. 42 RITUAL IN AMERICA: LOST AND FOUND Mircea Eliade states in George Elvin’s article on desacralization, it is a “process [that] is an integral part of the gigantic transformation of their world undertaken by the industrial societies, a transformation made possible by the desacralization of the cosmos accomplished by scientific thought and above all by the sensational discoveries of physics and chemistry.” Elvin see this as fundamental to the way in which ritual space is described in western culture. Because indigenous cultures must ‘make’ space through dance, carving it out of the boundless landscape, they do not have a culture that is desacralized such as our ‘advanced’ one. For him we are “incapable of the unity expressed in ritual” (19). For Thompson is there is also a lack of connection to our rituals in which we “experience space and time as detached observers” (83). He compares the western experience to that of the rural Japanese village and he states that the ritual experience of procession through the village is one of “spiritual memory,” and insinuates that we have lost this because we view our buildings from a fixed vantage point. The author of “Ritual” also sees society disconnected from ritual but not fatally as Elvin or Thompson. “Ritual forms by which society reveals and enforces its structures have eroded. Architecture, which took it’s meaning as the witness of events and rituals, has lost this animating role.” In this instance ritual is not lost, but hidden. It is the forms that have eroded not society.

While both Elvin and Thompson pick up on a perceived lack of ritual or meaning in our society, “Ritual” insists it is only weak. To be strengthened the participant must activate it, and through architecture this can be done. My thesis finds itself closer to that of “Ritual” than to either Elvin or Thompson. Their quick critique of western society seems to hold within it some romantic notions toward the subject of their study, the primitive tribal tradition and the eastern institution. While I do not agree we are fundamentally flawed where another culture is ideal, there is some truth to the matter. And where “Ritual” seeks to solve our problems through architecture and art exhibits alone, there must also be a broader social movement to create real change.

RITUAL AND THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE: Fred Thompson’s article touches on how the Japanese villagers create their rituals in the street. The everyday activities and the festival occupy the same space, which is defined by its activities rather than a visual order (82) The built environment affects their ritual but the ritual does not shape the built environment. The Aboriginal culture discussed by George Elvin also states how the ritual space is constructed in the mind of the participants but not in the physical realm. “The ceremonial clearing used in the Walbiri coming-of-age ceremony is not considered usable until the women have danced its entire length, making it a ’place’” (19).

For Wasserman the action of marking a place with a wall is an important step in the creation of sacred ritual Architecture. “A wall, 43 through enclosing, creates an edge…stepping through the threshold into the enclosure changes ones role: one is suddenly on the inside and in the memory realm.” Wasserman also states “there is no memory without body memory” (6). By this she underscores the importance of action, physical movement within a place. Unlike Elvin and Thompson, Wasserman endorses the enclosure and designation of ritual spaces, however the idea of action and procession is a very important one to the definition of the space as well.

Pillet determines “rituals adapt to the available spaces” such as discussed with Elvin and Thompson but also “that rituals themselves design spaces” (7). The landscape around a ritual site is important to its formation, the cosmos is what “man deals with in his ritual spaces” and “nature is the ultimate ritual space” (8-9). Pillet is not concerned with the form of the actual ritual space; he views it as generated by religion and ancient belief, however the landscape is an important condition for the final built work. Many of the examples Pillet discusses are ancient and their designated meanings are lost to history. However because of the strength of the site and the landscape, they still have a powerful presence.

Barrie conveys that ritual architecture is built myth. Sacred architecture and ritual architecture are based around procession and depending on the myth it can take many forms. While each religion may have a different set of beliefs and myths the fact remains that the “path and place, by symbolizing the myth and facilitating the enactment of ritual…answer...fundamental questions of existence” (40). This is based around the mythical “Hero’s Journey” and relates as well to the pilgrimage. The archetype of the path and the built form around it is a basic premise of the origins of Architecture. Barrie quotes Christian Norberg-Schultz: “all architecture is structuring of space by means of a goal or path” (39). Barrie takes this step further to suggest that the goal of sacred architecture is in fact the path, and by it the architecture is structured.

My thesis is very much in line with Barrie, Wasserman and Pillet. I am very much concerned with creating a specific place and building that concretizes ritual, unlike Elvin or Thompson. The path is of up most importance; especially the paths and destinations already in the cemetery. In the work of Voth and Calvino, the pilgrimage and path are both extremely important. Voth sets up a ritual process involving a passage to the North Sea, where the final, and most important of his work will take place. By isolating it and setting the place in the middle of the ocean, he creates an obstacle not unlike something that a hero on quest must overcome in order to receive transcendence. Marco Polo in his journeys plays the Mythical Hero. We see in the present only the last part of the process, the relation of places visited and the lessons learned.

RITUAL AND THE PHYSICAL LAYERS: There is a language of ritual spaces and architecture that is tied to sacred architecture, event, and phenomenological experience. Barrie touches on these aspects of 44 sacred space. “The experience and meaning of sacred sites is often related to its visual, spatial, and temporal composition” (50). Barrie quotes Thomas Thiis-Evensen, ”there is a common language of form which we can immediately understand, regardless of individual or culture.” For Barrie this includes “the floor, the wall and the roof” very basic elements as well as light geometry and types of space “inscribed or circumscribed” (46). He is cautious in ascribing to much importance to these elements, as while they may make up a kind of vocabulary, they are not architecture in and of themselves.

Wasserman takes and extremely direct approach and lists out the elements that are a part of the memorial experience. She lists artwork, the wall, landscape, rocks, light and reflection, water, wildlife, text, sound and objects of historical significance (11-18). This laundry list of elements to ritual architecture again recognizes that there are a part of significant projects and adds to the emotional effect, but are not the project itself.

The landscape for Pillet is also critical to the ritual space, he sites that “even today it is impossible to remain insensitive to the magical glow that radiates from a site such as Delphi.” For him we must take special care in the site selection and development. This is related to views, and the whole spatial experience. Using the landscape to advantage also allows for another level of orientation to the cosmos. This is a powerful reminder of what it is to be human, and under what conditions primitive man formed society.

RITUAL AND THE URBAN CONDITION: Durkheim touches upon this in his discussion of the sacred versus profane designation of objects. He feels that to be fully sacred, a sacred object needs to be separated from the profane. He does not describe how this happens, but that it should. However Fred Thompson believes that the more meaningful ritual is one that can occur in the streets and is essentially integrated into the fabric of the urban life. For my design proposal I see ritual space as something that should be separate, however not disconnected from the society it serves. It deserves to be separate but should still inflect on the urban life of the participants even during non-ritual times. The Kivas of the Anasazi that Michel Pillet discusses in his article are an example of this, integrated but separate. For my project, I wish to strike a balance between integration into the city, and an object that can be seen from the city. Integrating the cemetery makes it physically accessible and accommodates the user. It also sets up a dialectic relationship with the living city. However it is also this relationship that is important in separating it from the urban milieu so it can be seen. This draws out the procession, but also for those not in going to the cemetery, or even thinking about it, it is always there, poised on the horizon.

45 CASE STUDIES AND PRECEDENTS

Andrews, Mason. “Cemetery of San Cataldo.” Aldo Rossi Buildings and Projects. Comp. Peter Arnell and Ted Bickford. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1985. 88-101.

Bedard, Jean-Francois. “The Brion Family Tomb.” Carlo Scarpa Architect: Intervening with History. Comp. Olsberg Nicholas. Montreal Canada: The Monacelli P and the Canadian Center for Architecture, 1999. 153-204.

Davy, Peter. ”Ritual of Death.” The Architectural Review. Vol 205, iss 208. pgs 52-57. 1999.

This article is a look at a crematorium, Baumschulenweg by the architects Axel Schultes Architedkten in Berlin. The building reflects the very common condition today with no specific religious ties except for a vague notion of Christianity. It is interesting how they develop a spiritual place with no set of codified belief.

Zabalbeascoa, Anatxu. Igualada Cemetery. London: Phaidon P Ltd., 1996.

FURTHER RESEARCH

“Algiers.” Map. Digital Sanborn Maps. Howard Tilton Library. 7 Dec. 2007 .

Cahill, Spencer. “Ervinig Goffman.” Symbolic Interactionsim: an Introduction, an Interpretation, an Integrationi. Comp. Joel M. Charon. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992. 185-2007.

Dixon, Richard. Algiers: the Heart of New Orleans. New Orleans, Louisiana: Uptown Printing Company, 1973

Dixon, Richard. A Pictoral History of Old Algiers. Gretna, Louisiana: Rau’s Ex-Cel Printery, Inc, 1980.

Dixon, Richard. The Story of Algiers. New Orleans, Louisiana: Uptown Printing Company, 1971.

Durham, John C. “Understanding the Sacred.” Understanding the Sacred. 1 May 2007. 25 Nov. 2007 .

An excellent source that paraphrases and critiques several philosophers and sociologists including Emile Durkheim, and Mircea Eliade.

Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton, New Jersey: Princton UP, 1965.

46 Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, INC, 1959.

Funktion, comp. “Simple Pine Coffin Plan.” Casket Furniture. 10 Dec. 2007 .

Ih Tiao Chane, Amos. Intangible Content in Architectonic Form. Princeton, New Jersey: Princton UP, 1956.

Ih Tiao Chang, Amos. The Tao of Architecture. Princeton, New Jersey: Princton UP, 1956.

Jones, Lindsay. The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture: Experience, Interpretation, Comparison Vol I and Monumental Occasions Vol II. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 2000

Jones categorizes and explores sacred architecture from a sociological and psychological viewpoint. The books cover architectural types, and determine classifications for events. This clarifies ritual’s place in a larger sociological sphere, and takes a large and broad view towards how it is created.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Nicholson-Smith Donald. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1991.

Lippard, Lucy R. Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. New York: Pantheon Book, 1983.

Mathur, Anuradha, and Dilip Da Cunha. Mississipi Floods. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.

Nasar, Jack L. “Patterns of Behavior in Urban Public Spaces,” The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research. Vol 7, iss 1.pg 71-85. 1990.

“New Orleans.” Map. Robinson Atlas. City of New Orleans. 7 Dec. 2007 .

Schulthesis, Elizabeth A. “Integrating Timor Mortis: an Urban Mortuary and Crematorium New Orleans, LA.” Masters Thesis. Tulane School of Architecture, 2000.

Spires, Jill. “The Path of Healing: a Funerary Complex on St. Claude Avenue.” Masters Thesis. Tulane School of Architecture, 2000.

Quantrill, Malcolm. Ritual and Response in Architecture. Lund Humphries. London, 1974.

47 “Ritual.” Wikipedia. 15 Nov. 2007. 25 Nov. 2007 .

This site was an overview and somewhat helpful introduction on the subject of ritual.

Smith, Peter. The Dynamics of Delights. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Spradley, Todd. Myth, Ritual and Architecture: the Path Toward Architectural Transcendence. Atrium Press, Houston TX. 1995.

An uncompleted thesis from the University of Houston, this work focuses upon the nature of myth and how it is formalized into architecture. Rituals are discussed as an intermediate level between myths and built form. For me, it identifies a cross-cultural set of sacred sites for case studies and the relationship between myth and ritual. However ritual is not specifically addressed.

Underwood, David. Oscar Niemeyer and the Architecture of Brazil. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1994.

This is a look at the work of the Oscar Niemeyer, of which I was specifically interested in Brasilia. The strange forms that Niemeyer uses are of a mythical scale, and I was interested in how these architectural forms could be relied upon to help further a new social praxis. His unearthly and striking form is on a mythic scale, strange objects set out on a plane.

Wasserman, Judith R. “Memory Embedded.” Landscape Journal 21:1-02: 190-200. Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. EBSCO. Howard Tilton Library. 11 Nov. 2007. Keyword: Ritual + Memory. Very similar article to the Wasserman article listed under the annotated bibliography. More recently published with some different memorial case studies, this article really only was a follow up to the original and did not provide me any further information.

48 CITIES AND THE DEAD VI

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative, over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys people’s bodies and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still. Prone; anyway, it is dark.

From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say. “It’s down below there,” and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.

From Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino TO BE PURSUED FURTHER: research into burial customs around the world, funerals in America, the television show Six Feet Under and other American ritual practices, phenomenology, memory, readings by Norberg-Schultz, research into the site history and geology of Algiers point along with theory on topography, more topographic maps, the ferry system in New Orleans, the Mississippi river and its layers of sediment, the Mississippi river history more research on the workings of a cemetery, jazz funerals and cemeteries in New Orleans, ‘weak architecture’, the fusion of landscape and built form.

As this semester comes to an end, I feel that my thesis is evolving into something different that a focus on ritual. The site and its history, topography, and geology are taking on more and more importance in my mind and my research is being focused in this direction. In the last two weeks a focus on landscape and landscape architecture has emerged, and I am interested in pursuing it further. Of course it will be necessary to be sure it does not develop into a distracting tangent but at the moment it feels important to the overall design of the project. In some ways ritual and this interest in the layers of the site are not all that different. In fact it has felt as though I am excavating the ritual from the cemetery, and dealing with the deep structure of it as well. There is a temporal element in ritual and the landscape that is older than the individual experience. They both delve into the primitive forces: the geologic and the subconscious. We, and the landscape, are products of hundreds of thousands of years of development and creation. And we are still in this dynamic process, slowing moving, and evolving. Many times we seek to concretize that which is around us and forget that every moment is one that is different than that that came before. Ritual is a grasping effort to control this chaos, to carve out of time meaning and understanding. In the landscape I would seek to mark as well through the chaos, and if only for a geologic moment, mark our passage through this place.

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