Over the past few weeks, my second year design studio has been diligently endeavoring to understand the architecture of death. The site for the project is a beautiful undeveloped area on the Spokane river in an appropriately bucolic cemetery. We visited the site again today and it was an interesting experience as the group was taken on a tour of the facilities by the President of the funeral home. For some of the students it was an unnerving experience, particularly when they were shown the cremation ovens and realized that the long rectangular cardboard boxes lined up in the room actually contained bodies destined for their two hour fire bath. It truly was a priceless moment.

On my previous visit I was able to spend quite a bit of time alone in the mausoleum at twilight. I won’t deny that being alone in in the long dimly lit corridors surrounded by bodies of those that have past was a bit creepy at first. It made me certainly more aware of my mortality. During that time my mind wandered to thoughts about what I would want done to my body at the end of life. Unsurprisingly, the inner designer began to work. The final design problem I suppose. I will save that discussion for another time as I’m still designing! However I began to turn a critical eye at the surroundings I was in, the repeated motifs, the overwhelming blandness of it all put in stark relief by the vain attempt of the painted polyester flowers to color this pallidness.

I was in a suburb of death.

The casket showroom; the car dealership of Thanatos. Offering the latest in top of the line post-life luxury; a $10,000 polished stainless steel casket to transport you into the afterlife. That particular casket was already sold and the man who purchased it comes in periodically to admire it. Has he taken it for test drive? The cremation urn showroom was like the camera island at the local Best Buy. All tightly arranged and diverse in their materiality and size and use. Can’t decide who gets to take home beloved Aunt Judy? No problem get matching lockets to keep her close or perhaps a small no spill vial that you can toss in the junk drawer when you find out that she didn’t leave you her fortune.

Even more striking, this suburb had its own landfill and a slum too! There was a small dumping ground hidden in the trees. Hundreds of headstones and the miscellaneous debris of the death industry was strewn about. Some of the granite and marble epitaphs were broken but others appeared to be in fine condition and one had to wonder if they were relegated there by typographical error or something more disturbing like foreclosure on their plot.

Adjacent to the dump was an overgrown area that featured forlorn looking crosses resigned to struggle with the natural vegetation. A small rusty sign announced that this was an “un-endowed area” like any poor neighborhood. And like other poor neighborhood’s even this slum is subject to gentrification. Complete with the vinyl fence and the polyester flowers…