Density in life and in death: A look at Hong Kong's towering cemeteries

2019-09-09T16:15:00-04:00

[Finbarr Fallon's] photo series Dead Space explores how these monuments are designed, and how their history contrasts with Hong Kong’s more modern developments. “I have always been intrigued by how city-specific cemetery design can be,” Fallon says via email. “While death is universal, its memorialization practices are not. I found it fascinating that extreme density and verticality continue to be a defining characteristic of Hong Kong’s dwellings for both the living and the dead.”

Hong Kong's towering high-rise cemeteries can reach up to 60-stories in height. Regarding the photo project, Fallon writes, “The images juxtapose residences for two diametrically opposed groups—the high-rises for the living, and graves for the dead."

They died as they designed: famous architects' self-styled gravestones

2015-03-25T14:48:00-04:00

Le Corbusier designed a pair of markers in the style of one of his own concrete architectural models. Carlo Scarpa, who was buried standing up and wrapped in linen in the style of a medieval knight, has a marble grave with a maze-like design. Frank Lloyd Wright's marker could not even be called a gravestone, because it looks more like an uncut rock. Meanwhile, Buckminster Fuller's grave has an esoteric quote he once gave to Playboy magazine inscribed on it: "Call me Trimtab."

Sure, an article like this suggests a click bait-y listicle, heavy on images and light on content. But what's installed astride an architect's final resting place is of grave (pardon the pun) importance. Not only would it be surrealistically disorienting to have an architect's professional style countered by an antithetical gravesite, but it also smacks of lost opportunity – this is the final personal statement, in a way, that an architect can make.

It's also heartening to realize that even when they died unexpectedly, these architects had their plans sorted. Check out their graves below (a wholehearted and respectful h/t to Curbed for sourcing most of the images):

Alvar Aalto, Hietaniemi cemetery in Helsinki, Finland:

Bruce Goff, Chicago's Graceland cemetery:

Adolf Loos, Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria:

Buckminster Fuller, Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Frank Lloyd Wright (first grave), Unity Chapel Cemetery in Wyoming, Wisconsin (According to Curbed, FLW's final r...

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Density in life and in death: A look at Hong Kong's towering cemeteries

They died as they designed: famous architects' self-styled gravestones