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Last landscapes : the architecture of the cemetery in the West / Ken Worpole ; colour photography by Larraine Worpole.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Worpole, Ken.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Cemeteries--History.
- Cemeteries.
- Cemeteries--Landscape architecture.
- Sepulchral monuments.
- History.
- Physical Description:
- 223 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm
- Place of Publication:
- London : Reaktion, 2003.
- Summary:
- Last Landscapes is an exploration of the cult and celebration of death. It traces the history and design of burial places throughout Europe and the USA, ranging from the picturesque tradition of the village churchyard to tightly packed 'cities of the dead,' such as the Jewish Cemetery in Prague and Pere-Lachaise in Paris. Other landscapes that feature in this book include the war cemeteries of northern France, Viking burial islands in central Sweden, Etruscan tombs and early Christian catacombs in Italy, the 17th-century Portuguese -- Jewish cemetery 'Beth Haim' at Ouderkerk in the Netherlands, Forest Lawn in California, Derek Jarman's garden in Kent and the Stockholm Woodland Cemetery. It is a fact that architecture 'began with the tomb', yet, as Ken Worpole shows us in Last Landscapes, many historic cemeteries have been demolished or abandoned in recent times (notably the case with Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe), and there has been an increasing loss of inscription and memorialization in the modern urban cemetery. Too often cemeteries today are both poorly designed and physically and culturally marginalized. Worse, cremation denies a full architectural response to the mystery and solemnity of death. The author explores how modes of disposal -- burial, cremation, inhumation in mausoleums and wall tombs -- vary across Europe and North America, according to religious and other cultural influences. And Last Landscapes raises profound questions as to how, in an age of mass cremation, architects and landscape designers might create meaningful structures and settings in the absence of a body, since for most of history the human body itself has provided the fundamental structural scale. This evocative book also contemplates other forms of memorialization within modern societies, from sculptures to parks, most notably the extraordinary Duisberg Park, set in a former giant steelworks in Germany's Ruhr Valley.
- Contents:
- Landscape and Meaning 7
- Words and Things 9
- The Cemetery and Society 11
- 1 Living with the Dead
- An Island Walk 15
- Architecture Began with Tombs 18
- Landscape and Death 20
- Some Ancient Forms 25
- The Cemetery in the City 29
- The Destruction of Memory 32
- 2 Landscapes and Meanings
- The Great Design 37
- The Cross in the Landscape 38
- How Landscapes Shape Human Emotions 43
- A Matter of Evolution or Biology? 44
- The Painterly Tradition 46
- Sturm und Drang 50
- Landscape and Identity 53
- The Death of Landscape 55
- Recuperative Landscapes 57
- 3 Death's Compass
- The Rural Churchyard 63
- The Churchyard's Social Geography 65
- The Secret Garden 70
- The Churchyard in the Cultural Imagination 73
- Cultivated Churchyards 75
- 4 Cities of the Dead
- Etruscan Places 79
- The Catacombs of Rome 84
- The Modern Necropolis 86
- 'Nature Abhors a Straight Line': The Influence of the Picturesque 87
- Romanticism and Death: The Desire for Oblivion 90
- Eastern Influences 90
- The House of the Dead 91
- 5 Libraries in Stone
- Pivotal Landscapes 99
- Inscription and Relief 101
- Life Stories 108
- Inscription in the City 111
- Naming the World 114
- The Cult of the Pantheon 116
- The Cemetery as Gallery 121
- Hope in Ruins 128
- 6 A Walk in the Paradise Gardens
- Joint-Stock and Garden Cemeteries in England 133
- The Egyptian Revival 137
- Rural Cemeteries in North America 139
- The New Pastoral: The Rise of the Lawn Cemetery 142
- The Forest Cemetery 147
- 7 The Disappearing Body
- Coastal Cemeteries 153
- The Sanctity of the Grave 155
- Our Town 158
- Conversations with the Dead 159
- The Rise of Cremation 161
- Commemorating the War Dead 163
- Perpetuity and Decline 169
- The Re-use of Graves 171
- Burial Economics 174
- 8 A Place at the End of the Earth
- The Architecture of Death in the Modern World 177
- Crematoria and Gardens of Remembrance 183
- The New Monument Builders 187
- A Return to Earth 191
- Returns and Endings 195.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 214-217) and index.
- ISBN:
- 186189161X
- OCLC:
- 53364322
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