Boundaries in the city between the living and the dead

Abstract

The cemetery has always been a sacred place, where the transition from life to death takes place. Today the first thing that comes in mind about cemeteries is the idea of enclosed spaces. The spatial diversity of the city and the cemetery is linked to various realizations of their boundaries: literal and metaphorical, real or imaginary, tangible and intangible, permeable and impenetrable. The history of the boundary reveals a timeless swing between slackness and reinforcement, construction and deconstruction, demarcation and revision. The cemetery, however, is a place of memory and culture, reflecting the local and wider community. Its monuments and cultural heritage constitute the “passport” for the “recession” or even the “tearing” of the virtual border between the city and the cemetery. In such a way, the wall separating the city and the cemetery becomes a bridge between the living and the dead, past and present, the familiar and the unknown. © Balkiz Yapicioglu and Konstantinos Lalenis 2022.