“On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens.”.
-Henry Ward Beecher
After Life speculates on how we can reestablished our storage of the dead within the heart of the city. Past burial typologies, practices and logistics have pushed cemeteries to the outskirts, dislocating them from everyday life. Potter’s fields tend to be relegated to the periphery, while inner-city tombs are reserved for the few. Re-centralizing spaces of death allows an emotional weight and poignancy to be brought back to high-density urban life. A vertical approach addresses the spatial limits of horizontal burial, the environmental footprint of gravesites, and the unaffordable and ever-changing real estate developments of Manhattan. After Life imagines a new form and spatial organization for urban mourning and reflection. At the same time, this urban idea represents ecological and urban change, reinforces the past, and celebrates the permanence of human life.
Chronologically clad in greenery, this urban tower re-designs the relationship between the living and the dead by offering non-hierarchical interment along the High Line. It references, yet departs from the traditional funeral home, columbarium, and Victorian park cemetery typologies, toward a new form of vertical cemetery infrastructure within the city. At its core, the building provides private spaces for interment of loved ones. Meanwhile, the steel-frame crust of the building, frames an exterior, elevated public park space, engaging the Hudson Yards differently through long-term necro-residential tenancy. From the scale of the interred artifact to the urban monument, After Life grapples with the inevitable longevity of death within an urban fabric being continually developed. and opens up new spaces for contemplation and representation in Manhattan.
