9 of the World’s Most Iconic Cemeteries, Mausoleums, and Crematoriums

Cimitero Monumentale di Milano in Milan, Italy

Architect: Carlo Maciachini | 1886

Left:
Photo
courtesy
of Bruno

Balestrini. Right: Photo courtesy of Giulia di Marco.

Described as an “open-air museum,” this monumental cemetery is a treasure trove of

art, architecture, and design from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the eclectic
array of styles—including Egyptian, Byzantine, neoclassical, Art Nouveau, modernist,
and postmodern—two works of Italian Modernism stand out. The Monument to the
Victims of the Concentration Camps, along the main axis of the cemetery, was
designed in 1945 by the Milanese studio BBPR, which had lost one of its founders in
the Mauthausen concentration camp. The non-denominational structure consists of a
three-dimensional hybrid of a cube and a Greek cross. Near the central ossuarium,
an earlier strain of modernism can be found in Gio Ponti’s Borletti Chapel, which he
designed in 1931 while developing a new, more personal classicism. The marble-
faced chapel is adorned on its facade with two angels by the sculptor Libero
Andreotti and inside by a travertine altar and a gold mosaic ceiling.
Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California

Architect: Julia Morgan | 1909Left: Photo courtesy of @desiye_ via Instagram. Right:
Photo courtesy of Raena DeMaris.

The first woman to graduate from the architecture program at the École des Beaux
Arts in Paris, Julia Morgan oversaw the redesign and expansion of Oakland’s Chapel
of the Chimes in 1909. Named a “chapel” for its interior design rather than its
function, the Moorish and Gothic-inspired columbarium is a maze-like configuration of
rooms, winding hallways, and indoor gardens. Thousands of funerary urns (some
shaped like books) occupy niches in the walls, resulting in a serene, library-like
setting. In 1959, Morgan’s eclectic design was further expanded with Aztec-inspired
additions from Aaron Green, a protegé of Frank Lloyd Wright.The chapel also
contains small treasures from around the world: illuminated manuscripts from the
16th century, a page from a 1453 Gutenberg Bible, and a de’ Medici marble table.
San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, Italy

Architect: Aldo Rossi | 1984

Photos courtesy of Diego Terna.

The Italian architect and theorist 

Aldo Rossi
 conceived of San Cataldo as he was recovering from a car crash in hospital, and
these morbid circumstances inform the chilling, skeletal design of his “city for the
dead.” Set within a courtyard framed by blue-roofed buildings, the terracotta-hued,
cubic ossuary is without window panes, doors, or a roof. Though Rossi reportedly
declared, “I cannot be Postmodern, as I have never been Modern,” the cemetery he
designed outside of Modena is largely considered a postmodern masterpiece for its
appropriation of elements from a neighboring neoclassical cemetery, as well as its
distinct color palette. Rossi died following a second car crash in 1997. To this day,
San Cataldo remains only partially occupied and incomplete, missing a chimney-like
tower and a branch of a covered walkway.
Brion Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole, Italy

Architect: Carlo Scarpa | 1978

Photos courtesy of Nuno Cera.

Located in the Veneto region—which is also home to 

Andrea Palladio
’s famous villas—Scarpa’s design reflects his predilection for angular forms and stark
materials. Unlike the sprawling layouts typically associated with cemeteries, the
chapel, two crypts, pavilion, lawn, and reflecting pool that constitute this complex are
self-contained within a concrete wall. To soften its hard effect, Scarpa borrowed
elements from Asian design: a stream of water flowing through the compound and a
“mandala” door leading out to the garden. Scarpa made adjustments to the design
until 1978, when he fell to his death down a concrete staircase in Japan. His body
now rests in an isolated corner of the Brion Tomb, standing vertically like a medieval
knight as specified in his will.

Meiso no Mori Crematorium in Kakamigahara, Gifu, Japan

Architect: Toyo Ito | 2006

Left: Photo courtesy of Alberto Pugnale. Right: Photo courtesy of Tomooki Kengaku.

From above, the Meiso no Mori crematorium in Kakamigahara, Japan looks like a
polished white sand dune that gracefully echoes the hilly landscape around it. Serene
and seemingly weightless, the undulating roof is actually a 20-cm-thick layer of
concrete. Underneath, columns appear to drip down from the roof; inside, walls of
glass separate areas designated for funerals, wakes, and cremation. Designed by
Japanese architect Toyo Ito in collaboration with engineer Mutsuro Sasaki and
project architect Leo Yokota, this “Forest of Meditation” and its accompanying park
cemetery, which is currently in development, was envisioned as a gentle space that
departs from the characteristic solemnity of crematorium design.
Sunset Chapel in Acapulco, Mexico

Architect: Bunker Arquitectura | 2011

Photo courtesy of Esteban & Sebastian Suarez.

Shaped like a boulder, this mausoleum is perched among large granite rocks in a
mountainous terrain in Acapulco. When given the commission, Bunker Arquitectura
was faced with the challenge of incorporating views of the surrounding landscape,
which were then obscured by a huge boulder. They found a solution by raising the
level of the chapel and, to impact the natural vegetation as minimally as possible,
reduced the footprint to nearly half of the upper floor. Inside the second-floor chapel,
light floods in through vertical slits in the wall, and a glass wall opens out to a
magnificent view of the sunset—for which it is aptly named.

Extension to the Gubbio Necropolis in Gubbio, Italy

Architect: Andrea Dragoni | 2011

Photo © ORCH_chemollo.

Just five years ago, Andrea Dragoni completed an extension to an ancient necropolis
at the base of Mount Ingino in the Apennines. Rows of monumental walls—made of
travertine, a traditional Italian material used by the Etruscans to build some of Italy’s
most important Renaissance structures—echo the linear arrangement of the
surrounding town, Gubbio. “I wanted to reinterpret the material to emphasize the
gravity of the volumes of the cemetery and their strong abstraction,” he
once explained. In between the walls, four separate courtyards offer a public, social
space for reflection, with square skylights inspired by 
James Turrell
’s “Skyspaces” and site-specific works by artists 
Sauro Cardinali
 and Nicola Renzi. A fascinating marriage of tradition and modernity, Dragoni’s
design reimagines the cemetery as a public space to reflect and enjoy art.

Crematorium in Kėdainiai, Lithuania

Architect: Architectural Bureau G.Natkevičius & Partners | 2011

Photo courtesy of Gintaras Česonis.

In 1911, the Belgian Nobel Laureate Maurice Maeterlinck penned the treatise Death,
which challenged many taboos about human mortality and advocated for
crematoriums. “Decay offends our senses, stains our memory, slays our courage,” he
wrote. “But purified by fire the memory lives on in the ether as a glorious idea, and
death is nothing more than undying birth in a cradle of flame.” Yet crematoriums have
historically been met with resistance on religious, political, and environmental
grounds, especially in Lithuania, where architects only succeeded in building the first
crematorium in 2011. Consisting of concrete walls punctured by square windows, the
crematorium in Kėdainiai is designed, according to its architects like a “human
introvert,” to close itself off from the sugar mills and fertilizer factories that surround it.
A private interior courtyard serves as an “emotional filter” before entering the
facilities.

New Crematorium at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden

Architect: Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor | 2013

Photos courtesy of Ioana Marinescu.

Respect for the dead, the living, and the surrounding landscape is reflected in every
element of this crematorium, the winning design of an international competition in
2009. Nestled in an uncultivated territory of the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm,
the compact, one-story building—presented by the architect as “A Stone in the
Forest”—seeks to blend into its environment, its red bricks matching the surrounding
century-old pine trees and the sloping roof following the curve of the hilly terrain.
Inside, exposed white concrete walls reflect natural light to provide what the architect
called “a sense of clemency,” and the brick canopy at the public entrance allows
mourners to seek solace in the woods.
—Demie Kim

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-these-cemeteries-are-architectural-
masterpieces-and-elegant-memorials-to-the-dead