A cidade cemiterial: Cemitério da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Pelotas (1855-1976).

Abstract

The ways of bury the bodies of those who had died had undergone several transformations over the centuries. Beginning with coves covered with sticks and stones in prehistory, burials were made in monumental buildings made for only one person in antiquity. Over time, the dead were placed in cemeteries far from the cities and returned to the cities after their expansions, as well as being buried within religious temples. These changes generally created a separation between people of different social classes, religions, and cultures. From the eighteenth century the dead came to be seen as a threat to the living and this resulted in the separation between them. The distancing was more severe in the nineteenth century, when the danger of disease spread resulted in the creation of new rules for the installation of municipal cemeteries far from urban centers. It was in this context that the city came into being, a place dedicated only to the deceased. As the necropolis was a representation of the city, the research compared the urban and architectural structures in order to prove that the Cemetery of Santa Casa de Misericórdia simulated the city of Pelotas. With this, it was possible to identify that the layout of avenues, crossroads, blocks and neighborhoods, besides situations that resembled the political-administrative organization of the city, approached the urban mesh of the holy field to the one of Pelotas. In addition, the tomb building comprised different typologies, architectural languages, constructive details and representations of culture and religiosity. Thus, the cemiterial city of Santa Casa de Misericórdia resulted in a city similar to Pelotas, approaching space to that occupied by the living.