Sustainability of existing areas of historic cemeteries in the city organism: A Czech case study

Abstract

Old public cemeteries are integrated in urbanism as its obvious part what is given by its social function. The witness of these spaces express the relationship and respect to values created by generations ahead of us. There were a lot of forms of graves and cemeteries in a history. A big part of cemeteries preserved until today that we still have in our cities, were founded in 18th and 19th Century. Those burial sites that could be expanded fulfill its function till today. But some of them were closed in an urban organism and remained without use. The others were lost with an aggressive construction and were replaced by the settlements, factories or new parks in some cases, without etic rules. The story of many cemeteries is forgotten. There is a question: What is the fate of old cemeteries, which stopped fulfill their original function? What the investors, the monument care, the heads of cities would to do with it? The aim of the article is to compare the mutual influence of the urban structure of chosen cemeteries in Czech Republic and abroad. The results are obtained by analyzing and comparing the findings of the individual revitalized cemeteries that are still part of urban organism. It is necessary to specify the appropriate transformation of nonfunctional necropolis to become a full part of the city with respect to the dead, to the traditions, to the sacred space.