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Extension of a Necropolis + Catholic Cemetery of Santiago

Part 1 Project 2005
Carlos Raul Alegria Ly
 Central University of Chile | Chile
The Extension Project proposes the revalorization of funerary patrimony within the urban context of Santiago city, from the metropolitan scale until the Poetical-Scatological dimension of death in the contemporary occidental society.

The project re-articulates architectonic situations unscaled within the internal system of circulation and volumetric relations. The functioning of this old cemetery it’s updated to the funeral present-day request with a Funerary Boulevard, Chapel, Crematory, Ossuaries, Columbary, Tanatory, New Graves zones and Green Areas.

It defines a space of crossing among nature and architecture, among forgetfulness and memory, among pain and spiritual peace, among the man and his death.



The architecture of death represents the desires, fears, and hope of every culture. Therefore, to project a new Extension for the old Catholic Cemetery it’s necessary to understand the occidental man's changes about his own death.

There has been a constant abstraction of the vernacular elements of death, from the old cultures like the Egyptian or Romans; through Ad Sanctos Death of Middle Ages, the Illustration Death (XVIII-XIX century), until the Cemetery-Park model of the present-day. Therefore defines a transit toward absolute abstraction of death; silencing, and annulling the Mortuary Sense in the urban image of the cities.

2005
A cemetery with a storng patrimonial load, an extract of hiistory, and its neoclasical architecture shows the sense of its origin.
the evolution of the cemetery has losed the high patrimonial image, the change in the society about his death had impress a economic criteria in the spaces of death.
the cadaster made due the process of project, give to the project the primary elements that will give the first codes of contextualization and insertion of the project to developt.
in a urban level, exist in the urban grid of Santiago a defined Mortuory Zone, that contemplates the more antiques cemetery of Chile (General cemetery & Catholic cemetery) among others funerary programs like Hospitals, Funerary houses, asylum houses, flow
the prijecto is generated from de poetic aspect and from the scatological aspect, plus the codes of patrimoniality of the old catholic cemetery. the project defines five operations and five insertions of projects to set an order in the deteriorated contex
to control the project exist inner the old cemetery, an order architectonic that defines the patrimonial order in extension, a virtual mirror, or a compositive matrix that order the new space of graving. in the project exist a zone of tombs that`s removed
the proposed architectures defines a integrated program between the requiered programs in a urban level and other programs in the interior of the catholic cemetery. All of these articulates a Master Plan to developt, setting in the inmediat context a clae
the interior master plan`s programs wil be the final programs to developt in the project. in this way, it allow to enter in deepers aspects of the death in present-day to generate the Extension project. the program have a re-articulation objetive of the p
the poetic in the project detonate the simbolic of the death, generating a reading of solemnity and dignity for the absentees, and the sapaces take a unique character and image. finally the projects presents an imagen of a park, an artificial park, that p
for the extension project the concept of artificial landscape is fundamental, operating not laike a figurative transcript of the geographyc context but like a fiction nature, not scenographyc and not idilic place, a crudely landscape of expresive textures
the new programs integrated to the old cemetery updates its functioning and puts in the main mortuory market this catholic cemetery to avoid its obsolecense in the future. the optimization of sapace its the key for that, in that way the cremation it`s a p
there`s architectural elements that operates in urban levels like the sightseing-tower that give the oportunity to dominate al the sorrounding context (General cemetery, San Cristobal hill, Blanco hill) it`s a touch of the Haeven, a vertical brige of the
the Crematory Zone, it`s the new nucleus of the Extension project, generates a focus and a simbolic center putting itself in balance with the remodelation of the former Chapel, now named as the Chapel of Souls.
The Ossuaries and the Pain`s Garden are the bridge among the simbolic aspect and the architectonic aspetc too. Thus, defines a green platform that contains corpses and keepsake the remembrace of the present death that anulls, silence, and forget the prece
finally the project only pretends to revalue the funerary patrimony existent in the city of Santiago, detonating all its concepts not just the architecture but revaluing its sense of death, and how this one could generate a instant of reflexion, sensibili
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