As humans we have a strange relationship with death. The only species known to bury their dead, we approach the matter the only way we know how, and that is the same way we approach life. We each mourn our own way, perform the appropriate ceremonies, and then we adorn the newly departed with their own structures and architectures of stone, granite, plaster and metal. We shelter them from the elements by placing them in a tomb, then marking their location and memory with headstones, crypts, monuments or placards. Architecture may be the only thing we can take with us. In Paris, these burial plots combine to form districts of the cemetery, which are divided by boulevards, streets, or pathways. These in turn are given identification, and street signs are erected. At certain intersections, a large obelisk or sepulcher may be placed in the center, declaring itself a landmark from which visitors can get their bearings and migrate in the right direction. By applying theories of architecture and urbanism as understood by the living to places inhabited by the dead, cemeteries become places where two worlds meet and occupy the same space, both in the physical sense and symbolically. Although used for many activities in a densely packed city of bustling vibrancy these cemeteries, with their urban organization and architectural exonerations are still places of memory, of respect and somber reflection on our own mortality.
