San Cataldo Cemetery: what to see and tips

The San Cataldo Aldo Rossi Metropolitan Cemetery consists of an old part, built by the architect Cesare Costa between 1858 and 1876 and a very modern part built on the basis of the design by the architect Aldo Rossi (1971).

A masterful expression of Aldo Rossi's poetics, the cemetery is an analogical route through the collective images of the "house of the dead", filtered through the personal memory of the architect. The cemetery remains a public building with the necessary clarity and rationality of the paths with the right utilisation of the terrain. 

It is enclosed by a windowed wall to provide the citizens and visitors with an image focalised on the idea of space. The melancholy of the theme of death does however not detach it from the other public buildings. Its order and position also comprise the bureaucratic aspect of death. 

The building, today partially completed, is structured in such a way as to confine wide green spaces further marked by a criss-cross of pedestrian paths. 

The various building complexes run parallel to each other towards the central "vertebral" axis which objectively, almost "physically", links the orientational lines of this section of the project. These compositive lines volumetrically degrading in north-south direction will make up a "rib" inscribable in a triangle which, when construction has been completed, will represent one of the characterising elements of the whole works. 

The rhythmic articulation of the openings, framed by the cold neatness of the surrounding walls are to this day interrupted in counterpoint only by the central cubic element destined for the ossuary which, when the works have been completed, will be in visual balance with the conic tower of the common grave, also thanks to a decisive colour differentiation of the walls, instrumental for clear perception and identification within the sphere of the surrounding townscape.