The hidden city: Chacarita’s cemetery

Abstract

In this essay a characteristic thought about one of the first Clorindo Testa’s work is going to be discussed. He was one of the most important Italo Argentinian architects of the XX century. The cemetery of Chacarita, like many other cemeteries sited in the huge Metropolis of Buenos Aires, will be interpreted as a real “city in the city”. Only venturing into this parallel world, this thought about what is in between life and death shapes up through the language of Architecture. From the main entrance a layering of different periods and styles accompanies us to the heart of the cemetery, where the construction of the Sexto Panteón, dated 1958, takes place. This is just the first stop of an endless path where light effects and corridors labyrinthically animate the “eternal” space of the underground.

Keywords

• cimitero
• memoria
• clorindo testa