Friday, our studio took a trip to Modena, Italy. It is about a hour and a half away from Florence. We went there to specifically see Aldo Rossi's Cemetery. It was built in the early 80's. It was a pretty awesome experience. I did not know much about the cemetery before we went there, but walking through it and experiencing the spaces was pretty cool.Rossi's (newer) cemetery is next to the existing cemetery. He plays off this a little bit through a variation of visual connections. Rossi's cemetery is all concrete, Grandpa would love it. The craftsmanship and form-work was unbelievable. The choice of concrete relates to the city and its emphasis on factory work. Modena's work force is predominately factory workers since it is home to a major Italian luxury automobile called 'Maserati'.
The site is outside of the city because when the cemetery was first created, Italians didn't believe in burying their dead inside the city. The city had different neighborhoods and the cemetery was laid out according to neighborhoods.
The most interesting aspect of the cemetery is it isn't done. Rossi planned this cemetery to be built over a 100 year span. You build as people die. So what exists right now is about half of the overall master plan, the rest is to come.
2 comments:
Well babe, I think you should go to Geneva Switzerland because that's where the World Health Organization is and I would die to see it! Take some pics if you get there! Love you, and miss you.
-Leigh
If I went to Geneva the first place I would go is CERN. It is the largest physics particle accelerator lab in the world. You know how I went to FermiLab in Chicago last year? This is like that but much larger. Europeans are worried that when CERN's experiment works (finding dark matter), it will create another black hole, which would result in our extinction, they believe.
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