[In]visibility of death in the built environment: [de]legitmating traditional Mediterreanenan cemeteries in Southern Spain

[In]Visibility of Death in the Built Environment: [De]Legitimating Traditional Mediterranean Cemeteries in Southern Spain Author(s): MAR LOREN-MÉNDEZ and ANA QUESADA-ARCE Source: Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review , SPRING 2017, Vol. 28, No. 2 (SPRING 2017), pp. 35-51 Published by: International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/44779810 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms TDSR VOLUME XXVIII NUMBER II 2 0 1 7 3 5 Mar Loren-Méndez is an architect and professor at the Department of Architectural History , Theory and Composition, Seville University, Spain. Ana Quesada-Arce is an architect and Ph.D. student at the University of Seville. [Invisibility of Death in the Built Environment: [De] Legitimating Traditional Mediterranean Cemeteries in Southern Spain MAR LOREN-MÉNDEZ and ANA QUESADA-ARCE All cultures have responded formally to death, at times giving rise to the most representative architectural forms within their built environments. This article focuses on traditional cemeteries on the Mediterranean coast of southern Spain, with the aim of understanding why so few are protected and so many are at risk of disappearing. It first offers an interdisciplinary analysis of social conditions, historical records, heritage legislation, and urban planning polices to explain why these sites have received so little consideration. It then outlines emerging academic studies on the subject that document advances and limitations. Finally, it presents a proposal for the assessment of Andalusian coastal cemeteries within the framework of an integrated reading of heritage. Death today is a form of delinquency, a deviation and an unthinkable anomaly. - Jean Baudrillard1 How can traditional built environments such as cemeteries, which provide a setting for a delegitimized activity, be legitimized? As Luis Fernández Galiano has stated: "In these times being dead is not normal. Only violent death as spectacle or media event has symbolic legitimacy: everyday death is shameful."2 The unavoidable condition of death as an essential part of life has made it of concern to architecture. As a fundamental value, it has provided a basis for the configuration of built environments since prehistoric times. All cultures have responded formally and This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 36 T D S R 2 8.2 liturgically to the death of their forebears, at times giving rise to the most representative aspects of their architectural heritage.3 The early respect that man held for the dead , an expression of fascination in itself with its powerful images of daytime and nighttime fantasy, could have been possibly what led him to establish a fixed meeting place, and, later, a permanent base. . . . [UJrban life encompasses the historical space that spans from the first funerary tumuli of the primitive dead to the more recent cemetery, the necropolis, in which one civilization after another has met its final end.4 As described by Oriol Bohigas, cemeteries are veritable catalogues of architectures ( f i g . i ) .5 They are also, in ethnological terms, places of expression for the rituals by which communities recognize themselves. The urban character of traditional Mediterranean cemeteries can be differentiated from the rural quality of British cemeteries. Cities within cities, the grouping of niches along the structured streets and squares of Mediterranean cemeteries form an essential part of the traditional urban landscape ( f i g . 2 ) . Anglo-Saxon tradition views cemeteries as parks, and incorporates them naturally into everyday life. And in Anglo- Saxon cultures, civil society generally defends its architecture of memory and closes ranks to defend its cemeteries. However, Mediterranean culture in Latin Europe pushes aside reminders of death. Its cemeteries are monofunctional spaces, only visited once it has become unavoidable to do so for burials and commemoration. Such a condition has rendered their survival in the contemporary city harder to justify. And this culture of denial has been reinforced by the increasingly negative connotations surrounding death in modern times: Today's society, materialistic and demystified, has lost the close rapport architecture maintained throughout time with death, which, as a result, has become the new " social taboo"; not just covered up, it has also become a simple biological fact and a race against time. This now translates into a disinterest and a degree of contempt regarding funerary spaces when compared to other historical moments.6 Unlike the recognition received by the architects of monumental cemeteries, the builders of traditional Mediterranean cemeteries on the Malaga coast of southern Spain have remained anonymous, further hindering the processes of evaluation and institutional protection. The relatively recent origin of this type of popular funerary architecture (built in general throughout the nineteenth century) constitutes another obstacle for institutions and communities when considering its heritage value. Of particular concern in this regard on the Malaga coast today are the trends of deterioration, lack of protection, speculation, and dismantlement that threaten many cemeteries. These have in part been supported by a profound change in the culture of death in this area in a matter of only twenty figure i. PèreLachaise Cemetery, París. Cemeteries as catalogue of architectures. Jacques Maes e[ Mar Loren- Młndez Collection, October 2015. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LOREN-MÉNDEZ AND Q U E S A D A - A R C E : [ I N 1 V I S I B I L I T Y OF DEATH IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 37 figure 2 . Old Estepona Cemetery. Interior view. Jacques Maes £ Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, November 2011 years. Internments - the traditional and historical burial form to which this Mediterranean funerary typology corresponded until the end of the twentieth century - have been replaced by incineration, upsetting the traditional typology. Urban development and the expansion of cities have, of course, led to the dismantling of cemeteries all over the world. But on the Malaga coast, tourist pressures have further hindered their protection, making measures against their disappearance increasingly urgent. Across the region alarm bells are ringing as building speculators covet the privileged locations currently occupied by traditional niche cemeteries. This article examines the future of traditional Mediterranean cemeteries on the Malaga coast, reflecting on their value, current condition, and risk of disappearance. In doing so, it presents a summary of the historical and contemporary processes of legitimization and (de)legitimization affecting these places. The article first provides an overview of the contemporary origins of cemeteries in Europe and of their specific development in towns and villages along the Malaga coast. This is followed by a historical account of the first authors to visit and be moved by their aesthetic singularity. Romantic travelers, with their predilection for the English Cemetery in Malaga, were the first of these. But twentieth-century writers and intellectuals, such as Luis Cernuda and Bernard Rudofsky, later marveled at the pure lines of traditional Mediterranean cemeteries. Typically, it was the gaze of outsiders that first articulated and recorded the value of Andalusian cemeteries. The study then offers a critical reflection on these cemeteries, considering relevant international and national heritage legislation as well as the ways these places have been treated in local and regional planning policy. This includes a summary of the urban development plans in relevant municipalities and a review of references to the protection of cemeteries in heritage catalogues. A concluding section will consider lines of research being promoted by public institutions and universities, indicating advances as well as failures and limitations. Finally, the article will present a proposal that defines the value of cemeteries as heritage assets within the framework of the competitive research project "The N340 Roadway Corridor as a Historical Axis of the Andalusian Coast: Methodology for the Characterization of Heritage and Strategies for Sustainable Regeneration," carried out between 2014 and 2015 with FEDER funding. Despite their immense value as testimonies to society and their singularity as a type of traditional funerary architecture, very few traditional vernacular cemeteries on the Malaga coast are protected, and, critically, their survival is jeopardized by urban planning policy. The article asks: Should the destruction of collective memory be legitimized in this way? MEDITERRANEAN CEMETERIES IN LATIN EUROPE: ETYMOLOGY, ORIGIN AND EVOLUTON The word cemetery derives from the Latin coemeterium, in turn a derivation from the Greek koimeterion, meaning "bedroom" (dormitory), from the verb koimao, meaning "to go to bed, to lie down."7 Introduced by Christians, the term evokes a peaceful place of slumber for the dead, based on a belief in resurrection, where death is interpreted as a transitory stage from which the soul will awaken to enjoy eternal life. The cemetery was once the necropolis , the city of the dead. Also noteworthy, in Spanish, is the epenthesis that occurs in the word cementerio - by which the phoneme [n] has been added to the interior of the Latin word coemeterium, indicating a contamination from the word caementum , meaning mortar. Thus, the very material used to build the niches in Mediterranean cemeteries forms part of their name. The culture of death is invariably linked to religion. This may explain why - despite the great influence in the region of the Roman Empire and its long Muslim occupation - burials in Andalusia generally came to occur within cities and towns. In both Roman and Muslim culture the dead were buried outside the city. However, after the reconquest of al-Andalus by the Christians in the thirteenth century, it became the norm to bury the dead on church grounds. In Mediterranean countries such as Spain or Malta this funerary form predominated until the end of the eighteenth century, supported by the belief that religious associations and brotherhoods could act as intermediaries, transitioning the soul along the pathway to heaven. The religious architecture in these areas thus came to exhibit traces of the world of the dead in the city of the living. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 38 T D S R 2 8.2 With the advent of the Enlightenment, however, interventions in the urban fabric mainly concerned hygiene. And these eventually led to the separation of funerary practice from church-based religious practice. In particular, in 1784, Charles III of Spain (1716-1788) came to support European trends prohibiting interments inside churches.8 And in 1787 the Royal Charter decreed that burials should take place outside cities, a directive that influenced the formulation of all subsequent urban planning policy and legislation affecting funerary practice. The exile of the dead became inevitable. At the beginning of the nineteenth century cemeteries across Europe would need to embody a new architectonic typology. Such extramural cemeteries were typically sited in privileged locations, often in areas of high elevation that were well ventilated and easy to access from town. Two main models emerged. One, the rural cemetery, was inspired by the British tradition of landscape and garden design. It aspired to imitate nature, creating a park suitable for walking and contemplation. The other, the monumental cemetery, typical in France (and of greater relevance to this case study), was of urban inspiration, characterized by a structured layout of streets and squares. The two models ultimately also influenced each other, resulting in such classic sites as Père Lachaise in Paris or Kensal Green and Highgate in London ( f i g . 3 ) .9 Replicating the physicality of the city, they also mirrored its social structure. Thus, they combined pantheons designed by well-known architects for the aristocracy, smaller monuments for the bourgeoisie, humble tombs for the worker class, and anonymous common burial grounds - often in independent "neighborhoods" of the cemetery. With a few exceptions, such extramural cemeteries would gradually become a characteristic feature of the outskirts of traditional towns and villages in Andalusia. Typical was the development of new areas for the dead on the outskirts of the city of Malaga. A number of new cemeteries were built here at the beginning of the nineteenth century to address conditions of overcrowding and public health. Of these, San Miguel is today the most monumental. But the English Cemetery is notable for its landscape design; stylistically, it also features funerary architecture along Classical lines, with some eclectic elements, including the seashell motif that decorates the well-known tumbas de las conchas and adds local color. The cemeteries of San Rafael and San Juan, meanwhile, both respect the simple lines of popular funerary architecture characteristic of traditional towns and villages in the area. The use of all these cemeteries, however, explicitly reflected the structure of urban classes - with the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie burying their dead in the former two, and the proletariat in the latter two.10 Unlike the urban center of Malaga, smaller towns and villages in the region were generally connected to agriculture and fishing, and had only a token presence of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Their burial grounds thus contained few examples of monumental architecture. These vernacular cemeteries instead became cities within cities, urban in design, with space so scarce that ornamental gardening disappeared. A more economical burial form also came to predominate at these sites, as niches were stacked into rows of walls three or four stories high ( f i g . 4 ) . These in turn formed the facades that overlooked a network of avenues, streets and squares, where the use of architectural styles, characteristic of monumental cemeteries, almost disappeared. Burials in the historic centers of villages and towns also continued (and still take place occasionally) in the area, as Enlightenment ideals were never fully able to outdo the local power of religion ( f i g s . 5 - 7 ) . The cemeteries at Casares, Manilva, and Torremolinos, all framed in the tradition of figure 3. Père Lachaise Cemetery. The city as a model. Enlightenment rationale and trends in hygiene. Jacques Maes g Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, October 2015 figure 4. Old Estepona Cemetery. Detail of niche structure interments. Jacques Maes e[ Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, November 2011. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LOREN-MÉNDEZ AND Q U E S A D A - A R C E : [ I N ] V I S I B I L I T Y OF DEATH IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 39 figure 5 (top). Olvera, Cádiz. General view of Olvera from the main square in the old town , adjacent to the cemetery. Jacques Maes g Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, March 2016. figure 6 (left). Olvera Cemetery located in the old town. Interior view. Jacques Maes £ Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, March 2016. figure 7 (above). Olvera Cemetery, Cádiz. Access to the cemetery Jrom the main square in the old town. Jacques Maes g Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, March 2016. popular architecture and still operational, are thus situated at the heart of their respective old towns ( f i g . 8 ) . Indeed, in certain towns, including Mijas and Benalmadena, even the practice of burials by the church continued until the second half of the twentieth century. After that time, however, new pressure from tourism ultimately led to the relocation of cemeteries from urban centers. Of these places, the International Cemetery in Benalmadena was unique in that it contained both a Catholic area with niches of traditional Mediterranean typology and a second area open to all religious cults that was closer in typology to the British landscape tradition. In an interview, the mayor responsible for the eventual relocation of the Benalmadena cemetery, Enrique Bolin, recognized the influence of This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 40 TDSR 28.2 figure 8 . Torremolinos Cemetery located inside the town. Access and interior view. Ana Quesada-Arce, September 2016. Malaga's English Cemetery in its design.11 This had also been where his ancestor, a former Swedish consul, John Bolin, was buried." Mayor Bolin mentioned the inclusion of foreigners and non-Catholics in the Old Benalmadena Cemetery in his memoirs as a reflection of the plurality of society on Malaga's Costa del Sol. However, he also remarked upon its dire condition as a cause for its removal from the town.13 In other places, new burial grounds were developed at locations outside the town. The Marbella Cemetery, maintained inside the castle until the end of the nineteenth century, was thus replaced by two new cemeteries built by the municipality: the San Bartolome Cemetery on its outskirts in 1885; and, shortly after, the Cemetery of San Pedro de Alcántara, linked to the agricultural community founded by the Marquis of Duero, in i860. And, elsewhere, Estepona became one of the first coastal towns to comply with the directives of Charles III. By 1802, the preparatory work for a new cemetery had already begun, and the first burial in it took place in 1832. In general terms, traditional Mediterranean cemeteries share a number of common features. As shown in the accompanying images, different variations exist, but all comprise a network of main avenues and side streets (figs. 9, 10). Upon entry, a main square provides access to the different sections of the cemetery, with variations in the use of landscaping and paving ( f i g . 1 1 ) . Vertical niche structures define the facades that border the avenues, streets and squares. Situated off a main access road to the nearest figure 9 . Old Estepona Cemetery. Layout of streets. Jacques Maes e[ Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, November 2011. figure 10. San Pedro de Alcantara Cemetery, Marbella. View of secondary streets. Jacques Maes el Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, June 2011. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LOREN-MÉNDEZ AND Q U E S A D A - A R C E : [ I N ] V I S I B I L I T Y OF DEATH IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 41 figure ii. Old Estepona Cemetery. Main access square. Jacques Maes el Mar Loren-Méndez Collection , November 2011 town or city, such places are separated from their surroundings by a wall and a main access gate ( f i g . 1 2 ) . And they are sited in privileged locations, the benefits of which are discernible from the inside ( f i g . 1 3 ) . figure 12. San Pedro de Alcantara Cemetery, Marbella. Access gate. Jacques Maes el Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, June 2013. figure 13. San Pedro de Alcantara Cemetery, Marbella. Privileged enclave. Jacques Maes el Mar Loren-Méndez Collection, June 2013. Urban settlements across the Mediterranean region today generally exhibit similarities due to the spread of the Roman Empire. However, they vary in the expression of cultural and religious practices associated with death and its formalization. For example, in countries neighboring Andalusia, such as Morocco and Tunisia, Islamic religious law calls for the burial of the body in a grave without a coffin, with the grave aligned to the quihla (Mecca) and only a simple marker. Such practices are clearly incompatible with the niche cemetery form. Traditional Christian internments also have regional variations. For example, although traditional Italian Mediterranean cemeteries have niches, internments prevail, and cemeteries are more spacious. Within this spectrum of approaches, as this case study illustrates, popular cemeteries in southern Spain reflect the local vernacular architecture. They are comprised of simple whitewashed volumes that replicate the urban grid, and that mirror its social stratification. As such, they can be singled out as a distinct and important architectural typology. LEGITIMIZATION OF CEMETERIES IN THE OUTSIDER GAZE At the beginning of the nineteenth century, cemeteries had only begun to appear on the outskirts of Spanish cities when they came to captivate the gaze of travelers. This was especially true of the English Cemetery in Malaga. Distinctly landscaped and thus linked to a British tradition of garden design, it was mentioned in the writings of such famous figures as Richard Ford, George Denis, and Thomas Debary. Among early women travelers, Lady E. Mary Grosvenor visited both the English Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery of San Miguel in 1840. And the Australian, Margaret Thomas, This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 42 T D S R 2 8.2 true to the spirit of Romanticism, at the end of the nineteenth century described the English Cemetery of Malaga as a place so beautiful it almost rendered death agreeable.14 The Romantic vision was profoundly influenced by a rejection of the new technologies brought about by the industrial revolution. It was in this context that the exoticism of Spanish autochthonous architecture, so unlike northern European architectural heritage, captivated visiting foreigners. It was the city itself, its atmosphere and streets, that generated the sought-after sensorial experience, and it was natural that cemeteries would feature in these perceptions. The Hispanist Majorie Grice-Hutchinson, in her book The English Cemetery in Malaga and Other Studies, quoted such Romantic views, highlighting those of Hans Andersen, who had visited the English Cemetery in Malaga in 1862. 15 Anderson described it in his 1864 publication In Spain : I could well understand how a splenetic Englishman might take his own life in order to be buried in this place. I, however, thank heaven I am not splenetic, and shall have great pleasure in seeing more of this blessed beautiful earth. I did not make any attempt on my life but I wandered in a little Paradise - this charming garden. . . . Passionflowers flung their tendrils over many grave-stones, pepper-trees waved their drooping branches amidst this place of repose. Here stood a single palm, there a gum-tree, and in the centre of all this vegetation was a neat, small house, within which refreshments were to be had; pretty children with laughing eyes were playing there. The whole cemetery was encircled by a hedge of wild cacti, over which one beheld the wide, heaving ocean. I fancied at sunset that I could discern the African coast.16 At the end of the nineteenth century, after a series of economic setbacks, Malaga also began to promote itself abroad as a tourist destination. Weather had become a new reason for travel; and just as the benefits of fine weather and sunshine were equated to good health, so did hygiene become a matter of utmost importance. In this context, Luis de León, in his account Malaga, Winter Resort, dedicated an entire chapter to its necropolis, noting that the location of cemeteries should be an essential concern of travelers. He further expounded on the beauty of the English Cemetery: "Rather than a mansion of pain, it seems more like a garden of delights."17 Already a tourist destination by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Malaga coast also became a place frequented by painters and writers. One of these, Luis Cernuda (1902- 1968), an outstanding Generation of '27 poet, played a significant role in the creation of a tourist imaginary.18 As resorts on the Malaga coast began to develop, he wrote various poems inspired by its cemeteries, including "Town Cemetery," "An Elegy Foretold," and "The Other Cemetery" - as well as providing a translation of Friedrich Hölderlin's "The Cemetery."19 In "An Elegy Foretold," Cernuda touchingly described the Torremolinos Cemetery - then a small cemetery situated in a suburb west of Malaga, the provincial capital. His interpretation of heritage, transmitted through his poems, would eventually also influence people's appreciation of the layout and the scenic qualities of cemeteries in general. Unlike the Romantics, and from an artist's perspective, Cernuda was one of the first to proclaim an interest in the everyday local qualities that so fascinated tourists: On cemeteries in towns: Behind the open walled-in gate The dark earth bears no trees, no grass, Only old men gather on wooden benches To silently sit in the fading afternoon, With houses all around, shops nearby, kids Play in the street and trains Pass by tombstones. It is a poor area.20 Traditional cemeteries in the Mediterranean region of Andalusia were also later featured in the New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Architecture without Architects." In the 1963 show, curated by the architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905-1988), they were presented as examples of intelligent, serene architecture, from which contemporary designers (specifically in the U.S.) might have a lot to learn.21 Rudofsky's own photographs of these places would also later appear in his publication The Prodigious Builders.22 The towns of Casares, Sayalonga, and Almuñecar, whose cemeteries were depicted in the exhibition, are all located on the Andalusian Mediterranean coast. Beginning in the early 1960s, Rudofsky had made a point of visiting such traditional towns and villages, shunning stopovers in monumental cities.23 His subsequent arguments in favor of their design qualities highlighted the value of difference as a sustainable and versatile condition. But he also saw the aesthetic and phenomenological dimension of such places as having contemporary relevance, specifically as it overcame stereotypes that prevailed in the image of Spain at the time. Located in the province of Malaga, the municipal boundaries of the village of Casares reach the coast, but its historic center is in the interior, approximately fourteen kilometers from the sea. Here it occupies a steep topography, providing a classic example of what Rudofsky classified as "Hill Towns," and he photographed it often before his death in the 1980s. The cemetery in Casares, a city within a city, sits firmly on an incline and echoes traditional architectural wisdom, altering the topography and offering a viewpoint over nearby vineyards to the distant sea. A heritage assessment of such a place must transcend considerations of architectural form to focus on the capacity to construct a landscape. Rudofsky was also interested in the what Eric Hobsbawm has referred to as the "transversal" condition of tradition.24 By highlighting the value of funerary architec- This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms LOREN-MÉNDEZ AND Q U E S A D A - A R C E : [ I N ] V I S I B I L I T Y OF DEATH IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 49 PROCESSES OF LEGITIMATION: THE RIGHT TO BE Death, as an unavoidable part of life, plays an essential role in the narrative of territories. Cemeteries are reflections of the society they are part of, and they reproduce the history of cities and territories. Indeed, the commemoration of death can be seen as an original feature of cultural landscapes, responding to the need to establish a location for a population's forebears. The drastic change in the spiritual aspirations of Western society that took place during the twentieth century, however, has been consolidated in the current century: death, no longer a transcendental event, has now become a mere biological fact, a social taboo. This change has profoundly affected the value that society, institutions and architects attribute to funerary design. Traditional cemeteries on the Malaga coast constitute a singular, yet obviated, formalization of the culture of death, mirroring urban life. Yet the safeguarding of Mediterranean cemeteries is problematic because of their condition as anonymous, monofunctional spaces, built over the last two centuries. They are therefore fairly recent architectures, often occupying strategic enclaves on the outskirts of coastal tourist resorts. As such, they are subject to pressure from urban speculation, and their protection is often perceived to be an obstacle to development. However, the touristic offering of sun and sea might alternatively be complemented by a cultural offering, in which cemeteries are integrated into an updated and holistic reading of heritage. Thus different assets may be integrated into one single historical, geographical and social rationale. An integrated assessment of cemeteries within the new framework of semantic and methodological openness that currently characterizes the field of heritage studies is, however, critical to overcoming their invisibility, and facilitating something more than a narrow, monographic evaluation of funerary architecture. Steps to safeguard the physical presence of cemeteries within cities include their incorporation into heritage and urban planning processes and the amendment of existing regulations governing construction materials to ensure that restoration work is compatible with traditional building methods. An analysis of health and safety norms is further essential to meet the standards required to fully integrate the use of cemeteries within the contemporary urban fabric. The intangible dimension of cemeteries is also of critical relevance, and in this sense, the survival of cemeteries relies on their continued use. The presence of an active community of visitors, attending to a cemetery's landscape, transforming it through floral arrangements and social interaction, is essential if it is not to become a museum. From a design standpoint, the fact that incinerations are becoming more popular than burials may further allow the original niche structures of traditional Mediterranean cemeteries, originally designed for coffins, to be used as columbarium walls containing urns, as is the practice now in the San Miguel Cemetery in Malaga. Cemeteries solely containing ashes are also exempt from the directive that stipulates a physical separation between inhabited areas and internment grounds. This initiative meets the standards set by health and safety regulations and facilitates the continued presence of the city of the dead within the city of the living, allowing cemeteries to continue to function today as urban spaces in their own right.44 The question, "Is the destruction of collective memory legitimate?" could be followed by, "Can we imagine a 'bill of rights' to protect built environments?"45 A strictly local and conservative perspective needs to make way for an assessment of heritage in the wider context in order to preserve the real value of this form of traditional built environment. However, as part of this effort, paternalistic views of endangered vernacular environments, such as those developed by authors such as Henry Glassie, must be overcome.46 Having accepted that what lasts in tradition today is paradoxically its transient nature, it is indeed this modern condition which makes it possible to [rejdefine its immutability. As Nezar AlSayyad reaffirmed in the edited 2004 volume The End of Tradition?, "We must recognize that what lasts in tradition today is the 'transient, the fleeting, the contingent, because that is the new way to find 'the eternal and the immutable.'"47 In order to do so, and inspired by Oleg Grabar's reflections, this article has highlighted the need for cemeteries to be part of wider narratives that underpin the construction of historical memory.48 The research has thus sought to extend beyond a limited expert discourses, and commit to an interdisciplinary approach that can reach wider sectors of the population. This could lead to the elaboration of a powerful mythology, provoking fascination and a necessary reappropriation of cultural diversity in the Mediterranean tradition of funerary practice, preserving it beyond its physicality.49 This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 50 T D S R 2 8.2 REFERENCE NOTES i. J. Baudrillard, El intercambio simbólico y la muerte (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1980). As referred to by L. Fernández Galiano in "Memento mori," in Una arquitectura para la muerte: Actas I Encuentro Internacional sobre cementerios contemporáneos (Sevilla: Consejería de Obras Públicas y Transportes, Dirección General de Arquitectura y Vivienda, Junta de Andalucía, 1993), p.35. 2. Fernández Galiano, "Memento mori," p.35. 3. The impressive constructions at Stonehenge near Salisbury, England, date from between 2750 and 1500 BC, and are a clear example of man's early quest to establish permanent burial sites. See S. Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, original drawings by R. Tobias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), figs. 2. 20 and 2.22. 4. L. Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961). As referred to in L.M. Roth, Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning (New York: Icon Editions, 1993), p.147. 5. O. Bohigas, "Los cementerios como catálogo de Arquitectura," in Revista C.A.U. 17» I973- 6. A.M. Pérez Naya, "La muerte silenciada: Arquitectura funeraria contemporánea," in II Congreso Internacional de Arquitectura Religiosa Contemporánea: Entre el concepto y la identidad (Orense: Fundación Santa María Nai y Delegación de Ourense del COAG, 2009), p.i. The concept of "social taboo" is used in M. Vovelle, Ideologías y mentalidades (Barcelona: Ariel, 1985). Another text on the theme by the same author is M. Vovelle, "La crisis de los rituales funerarios en el mundo contemporáneo y su repercusión en los cementerios," in Una Arquitectura para la muerte, pp.107-14. 7. M. Moliner, Diccionario del uso del español (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1970). 8. J.L. Santonja, "La construcción de cementerios extramuros: un aspecto de la lucha contra la mortalidad en el Antiguo Régimen," Revista de Historia Moderna: Anales de la Universidad de Alicante, 1998- 1999' PP-33-44- 9. For more on contemporary cemeteries, see F.J. Rodríguez, "Loca silentiis apta: Algunas reflexiones en torno a las necrópolis contemporáneas," in Una arquitectura para la muerte, pp. 15-2 6. 10. For more on the history of cemeteries in Malaga, see F.J. Rodríguez, La ciudad Silenciada: Los cementerios de Málaga. Historia del Arte de Málaga, Vol.17 (Málaga: Prensa Malagueña, 2011); and R. Camacho, "Moradas de la muerte en la Málaga contemporánea," in Una arquitectura para la muerte, pp.37-50. ii. L.C. Gutiérrez, "Enrique Bolín: «Si yo no gobierno aquí no se hace nada» Interview with Enrique Bolín," in La Opinión de Málaga, July 9, 2010. Available at http:// www.laopiniondemalaga.es/costa-sol- occidental/2010/07/09/enrique-bolin- gobierno/352588.html. 12. M. Grice-Hutchinson, El cementerio inglés de Málaga y otros estudios (Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 1989), p.49. 13. E . Bolín, Enrique Bolín : Retazos inéditos (Madrid: Sepha, 2010). 14. A. Marchant, "Moradas de la escritura última: Fuentes documentales para la historia del Cementerio Inglés de Málaga," in Revista de Historiografia (RevHisto) 1, 2004. 15. Grice-Hutchinson, El cementerio inglés, p.15. 16. H.C. Andersen, In Spain (London: R. Bentley, 1864), p. 105. 17. L. De León, Málaga, estación de invierno (Madrid: Tipografía de las noticias, 1894). 18. The Generation of '27 [Generación del '27] was a group of poets emerging in Spain between 1923 and 1927 who incorporated the views of the European vanguard in art and literature. 19. F. Hölderlin, Poemas (Madrid: Visor Libros, 1985). 20. L. Cernuda, Poesía completa (Madrid: Siruela, 1999), pp.295-96. Written in the 1940s and published for the first time in L. Cernuda La realidad y el deseo (collection of his poems, up-dated in various editions until 1962, the year of the last Siruela edition). Translated by C. Stewart. 21. The exhibition "Architecture without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non- Pedigreed Architecture" opened on November 11, 1964, and closed on February 27, 1965. In i960 Rudofsky had been invited to propose a series of photographic exhibits by Arthur Dexler, the director of the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA. Four were in fact designed as traveling exhibitions, and the MoMA did not plan to show them in New York: "Roads" (1961), "Stairs" (1963), "Architecture without Architects" (1964), and "Streets, Arcades and Galleries" (1967). The last was eventually cancelled. For more, see M. Loren-Méndez, "Uprooting Andalusian Traditional Architecture: Visual Strategies on Bernard Rudofsky's Subversive Discourse," in IASTE Working Paper Series, 258 (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2014), pp. 44-73, specifically note 1, p.72. 22. B. Rudofsky, The Prodigious Builders: Notes toward a Natural History of Architecture with Special Regard to Those Species That Are Traditionally Neglected or Downright Ignored (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977). 23. As I have previously written, "Rudofsky's itineraries were marginal, like the architecture in his exhibit, and his slides show few well-known monuments in capital cities, showing a special interest in Andalusia since his first itineraries in 1963." Loren-Méndez, "Uprooting Andalusian Traditional Architecture,", p.49. 24. As Eric Hobsbawn has written, "Tradition is transversal: it is as much a part of 'traditional' societies as it is of 'modern' ones, making geography less an issue of distance than of difference/sameness." E. Hobsbawn, "Introduction: Inventing Traditions," in E. Hobsbawn and T. Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p.5. As quoted in N. AlSayyad, Traditions: The " Real ," the Hyper, and the Virtual Traditions in the Built Environment (London and New York: Routledge, 2014) p.55. 25. Andalusian cemeteries on the Mediterranean coast occupy a privileged place both in Rudofsky's book The Prodigious Builders (p.81, fìg.54; p.164, fig.130) and in his personal slide collection. See "Bernard Rudofsky papers 1910-1987," Folder 15, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. 26. Ibid. 27. The Código Técnico de la Edificación, approved in 2006, sets out the building regulations that govern the process of construction in Spain. 28. All current local and urban development plans, as well as subsidiary norms for the municipalities in the relevant areas of study have been consulted. 29. These are regulated by specific sectorial legislation, including the Regulations of the Mortuary Health Police, 1.; by Decree 263/1974» 2 at national level; and by Decree 95/2001 at regional level; as well as by further subsequent modifications. 30. The Special Plan for the Protection and Improvement of Town Centers [Plan Especial de Protección y Mejora del Casco Urbano] was permanently approved in 2009. 31. J. Rodriguez Barberán, ed., Cementerios de Andalucía: arquitectura y urbanismo, Í993. (Sevilla: Consejería de Obras Públicas y Transportes, 1993). 32. Consejería de Fomento y Vivienda, Junta de Andalucía web page: http://www. juntadeandalucia.es/fomentoyvivienda/ portal-web/web/servicios/ publicaciones/4416 (June 2016). 33. This was published in 1993 as Una Arquitectura para la muerte. 34. Camacho, "Moradas de la muerte en el mundo contemporáneo." 35. F.J. López Morales, "Arquitectura funeraria popular en Mexico," in Una Arquitectura para la muerte, pp.115-22. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 5 1 36. For more, see the research of Stanley Brandes: e.g., S. Brandes, "Iconography in Mexico's Day of the Dead: Origins and Meaning," Ethnohistory, Vol.45 no-2 (Spring 1:998), p.181; and S. Brandes, "Sugar, Colonialism, and Death: On the Origins of Mexico's Day of the Dead," Comparative Studies in Society History, Vol.39 N0.2 (April 1997), p.270. 37. M. Loren-Méndez and A. Quesada- Arce, "Reciclaje del litoral malagueño: Estrategias de turismo cultural y su optimización a través del Responsive Web Design," in X TURITEC, Congreso Turismo y Tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones (Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 2014), pp.255-69. 38. A. Marchant Rivera and F. Rodríguez Marín, coord., in La muerte desde la arqueología, la historia y el arte (Málaga: Universidad de Málaga y Libros ENCASA, 2°Í3). 39. www.significantcemeteries.org (May 2016). Significant work relating to cemeteries is also being developed in Ibero-America, with national networks and the Ibero-American Network of Heritage Cemeteries. 40. www.guiadecementerios.com (June 2016). 41. "The N340 roadway Corridor as a Historical Axis of the Andalusian Coast: Methodology for the Characterization of Heritage and Strategies for Sustainability," M. Loren-Méndez (main researcher and director). Research team at https://n-340. org/proyecto/equipo), November 15, 2014-June 30, 2015. Project and contract from I+D+i call for proposals 2012-2013. Agencia de Obra Pública (AOP), Consejería de Fomento y Vivienda, Junta de Andalucía. FEDER European Funding. 42. This methodology is outlined by M. Loren-Méndez, R. Mata, R. Ruiz, and D. Pinzon-Ayala in "An Interdisciplinary Methodology for the Characterization and Visualization of the Heritage of Roadway Corridors," Geographical Review (version of record on-line July 23, 2016). 43. Loren-Méndez, Mata, Ruiz, and Pinzon- Ayala, "An Interdisciplinary Methodology for the Characterization and Visualization of the Heritage of Roadway Corridors." 44. Future studies could research into interments that comply with the requisite health and safety standards. 45. O. Grabar, "Why History: The Meanings and Uses of Tradition," Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, V0I.4 N0.2 (Spring 1993) p.19. 46. H . Glassie, "Vernacular Traditions and Society," Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol.i N0.2 (1990). 47. D. Gaonkar, "On Alternative Modernities," Public Culture, N0.11 Vol.i (I999)» pp.1-18. As cited in AlSayyad, Traditions, p.40. 48. "Hence, the suggestion of a bill of rights for the manmade environment would, at least, assure preservation in documents if such preservation is impossible in fact. One must recognize that most things made by man will die in their physical appearance, but they can be allowed to die in dignity, and that they can be remembered and recalled when needed." Grabar, "Why History," p.26. 49. This reflection came up in a conversation on December 19, 2016, in Kuwait, with Tanu Sankalia, an architect and director of the Interdisciplinary Urban Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. This content downloaded from 150.214.182.9 on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:06:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms