San Michele Cemetery Extension

Venice’s principal cemetery San Michele is located on an island between Venice and Murano. The design redefines some of it's original physical qualities. In the 1st phase the current burial grounds are complemented by the construction of a series of new courtyards and a chapel. The first courtyard is a prototype and opened to the public in September 2007. It's called “the courtyard of the four Evangelists”: basalt-clad walls and pavements with inlaid text from the four Evangelists’ gospels and a black exposed concrete colonnade. The second phase is the construction of a new island, parallel to the existing cemetery but separated by a canal. It will feature tomb buildings, conceived as simple sculpted blocks, together with a series of gardens at water level. Unlike the remainder of San Michele, which is higher above the water line and surrounded by a wall, this new island seeks to create a more open, accessible monument providing a greater sense of place and context within the lagoon.