Graveyards

from "They were elevated moral landscapes..." from Ann Alhouse (who in turn is quoting from the Guardian):

Cemeteries were... once. Shouldn't they be, again? Meet the cemetery architect.

"People always say it's ghoulish," [Michael Howe] says, "but we also design things like lavatories and bathrooms, and that's much more icky. Designing cemeteries is a lot more interesting than designing a middle-class person's kitchen extension."...

"One of the issues that has led to the desecration of burial grounds is fear. Socialising these spaces is absolutely essential, so young people see them as part of the cycle of life and death," he says.

He hopes that people will visit the cemetery as a park and even take a picnic there. "If there are green open spaces and woods, why wouldn't people romp around or have a picnic?"

He adds: "It was only in the 20th century that we stopped using cemeteries in this way. The Victorians thought of them as highly cultured places of genteel resort and instruction. A cemetery was considered a neat and proper place to meet and spend time."

He argues that it is not only the Victorians who can find cemeteries uplifting places. "Everyone thinks of the commemoration of deaths as a Victorian thing, which is amazing since we are not going to get out of the habit of dying."

As a kid, there was a cemetery near my home. On a few occasions, I did some wandering through it, exploring. There was nothing particularly ghoulish in the act, I saw it as more like walking through history.

The older, more grandiose monuments were of particular interest to me. They were far removed from the main entrance of the cemetary. The more recent burials had much simpler headstones that were less distinctive or unique. There is far less art in these memorials than there was in the past. It was like walking through time to move through the eras.

The only really sad thing that ever got me thinking about death at that young age, was the sight of one grave marked with an embossed aluminum plate marked Baby (Family Name) and the dates spanning the very short lived life of the child.