Shared landscape, transposed landscape. Cemeterial settlements of the Islamic Mediterranean

Abstract

The essay starts from theoretical observations on the general meaning of the cemetery as other city, considering the symbolic, morphological and settlement constants of ancient cemeteries in the Mediterranean Islamic world. The city of the dead is always related to the city of the living by analogies and juxtapositions, in line with Islamic cosmology. Both Istanbul's Ottoman graveyards, internal and external to the city, and the cemeterial settlements next to the gates of the ancient Fez, reveal this feature. The essay aims to point out some recurring compositional principles (the presence of a boundary, the relationship with the topography and the urban structure) and compare the different values to those of the European cemeteries. The goal is to identify practical tools for designing new landscapes of the dead

Keywords

• città dei morti
• mediterraneo islamico
• morfologia urbana
• paesaggio
• insediamenti cimiteriali