The studio questions conventional orientations, organizations, and architectural roles within a generic cartesian system. In the “last house” portion of this studio, we have been given a site—Graceland cemetery in Chicago—and program selected from common cemetery program types.
The object developed through abstract formal exercises and anamorphic projection has been pressed to serve as a mausoleum/columbarium, and the associate program is used to position my viewer/occupant at the focal point for the privileged view of the form. A labyrinth composed of the relocated memorials and headstones from the site forces the visitor along a path of contemplation to experience 360˚ views of the object before arriving at the privileged focal point. The mausoleum is imagined to have been aggregated over time, each generation adding a mausoleum on top of the previous structure, always projected from the same point.