Sequencing the interstice: a path between life and death

Abstract

The thesis explores the place of death and the cemetery in society and architecture, death wants to be seen and appreciated, it wishes to come out of the oblivion it has found itself for decades, seen as an enemy, the antithesis of life. This perception has existed for a long time when in truth they have an eternal relationship that should be seen as part of the same cycle, a single event, where they complete each other. Architecture plays a key role to bridge these two worlds, providing places where both the living and the dead can dwell. A final resting place for the dead, where the living can also find beauty, surprises, and serenity. Architecture stands in between life and death, in the middle of a paradox, it has the poetic possibility of bringing death and its memory closer to the physical realm, and as an art, it can also slow down the passing of time. When dealing with death architecture stands in the middle of several contradictions, natural-artificial, interior-exterior, public-private, so the thesis is an approach to the gap between these concepts and the possibilities that exist there. Both the city of the living and the death will continue to grow until a point they meet each other this is why it is important to project the current interstice that exists between them in order to create the proper encounter of the two. The thesis is organized into six chapters. The first one is an analysis of the place of death in the city and its evolution through time, the second one addresses the key role nature plays in the reading of the places of the dead, the third one is an introduction to understand the possibilities of funerary architecture as part of the public space, the fourth and fifth are a theoretical approach to how space is perceived both in the large and the small scale and how it relates to the funerary architecture, finally, the last chapter is the architectural manifestation of a project that applies the ideas of monumentality and the perception of space in order to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.