This review is written by NuNu Chang, co-owner and principal of Albers Chang Architects in Houston.

In September 2015, the ashes of renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902—1988) were exhumed and transformed into a diamond and set into a silver engagement ring as part of a conceptual art piece by Jill Magid, titled “The Proposal.” The piece would be realized in the exchange of the 2.02-carat diamond ring for the return to Mexico of Barragán’s archived work numbering over 13,000 pieces, which has for the past twenty years been owned and hidden from public view by Federica Zanco, an Italian art historian. While the fate of Barragán’s remains is unusual in its circumstance and scope, questions of public and private influence recur in Architects’ Gravesites: A Serendipitous Guide (MIT Press, 2017), as Henry H. Kuehn presents a photographic guide of over 200 gravesites of architects known in the U.S. and internationally.

Some markers convey the architect’s reflection of his own work, the historical context of the work, and others are poignant reflections on the architect’s life and achievements by their colleagues. As one may expect, creators of our well-known edifices are remembered in like manner — Pierre L’Enfant’s occupies a massive classical table resting atop Arlington Cemetery overlooking DC, the remains of Bertram Goodhue lie at his request in a majestic stone catafalque within the Church of the Intercession of his design, and Pierce Anderson’s Beaux-Arts monument, a massive classical sarcophagus and a building unto itself, is located in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago where many of the gravesites in the book are located.

Others place the architect and his work in historical context. As architecture came to be recognized as a profession, “Architect” began to appear alongside the name as a mark of distinction, as on the gravestones of John Wellborn Root, Jr. and Edward Durell Stone. Louise Bethune, the country’s first professional woman architect, is buried beneath a headstone bearing only the name of her husband. Julia Morgan, despite her prolific achievements including the design of Hearst Castle, is listed plainly on the marker among several family members.

Perhaps most striking were the ways in which architects were memorialized by their colleagues. The marker of Bruce Goff, designed by one of his former students, is an appropriately whimsical three-sided bronze disk crowned with a misshapen glass fragment saved from a house of Goff’s design. The rectangular plaques of SOM partners Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan are laid side-by-side, Khan’s plaque having been designed by Graham, while Graham’s cenotaph (a monolithic stone slab with concave surface forming a reflective pool when rainwater collects) was designed by Craig Hartman of SOM. Michael Graves’ postmodern monument, a polished red granite layer cake consisting of a cylinder on graduated cubes, was designed by his associate Donald Strum based on Graves’ sketch for an exhibit yet unrealized at his death.

At the book’s printing the death of Iraqi-born British architect, Zaha Hadid (1950—2016), was recent enough to be included with a note by the author indicating a permanent marker was yet to be erected at her gravesite in Brookwood Cemetery, England. The marker has since been installed, taking the form of a folded surface appearing to float above ground, to honor the work of Hadid, the first female architect to receive the Pritzker Prize.

NuNu Chang is co-owner and principal of Albers Chang Architects in Houston.

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