"Last Landscapes" explores the cult and celebration of memory and loss in the landscapes of the cemetery. It traces the history and design of cemeteries throughout Europe and the USA, ranging from the picturesque tradition of the village churchyard; the tightly packed "cities of the dead", such as the Jewish Cemetery in Prague or Pere Lachaise in Paris; the war cemeteries of Northern France to the enchanted modernism of the Stockholm Woodland Cemetery. It discusses cemetery design in North America, such as the cemeteries for immigrant communities and those at Mount Auburn, Massachusetts, and Forest Lawns in Glendale, California. Cemeteries have become key settings for the architectural expression of mourning, reflecting national, religious, romantic and positivist attitudes towards death. These landscapes and their monuments also reveal the artistic and cultural allegiances and interests of their time. Worpole consequently examines the aesthetic principles of contemporary landscape architecture and critically assesses the debt this owes to land art practitioners such as Christo, Robert Smithson, Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy.
This evocative book also contemplates other forms of memorialization within modern societies, whether in the landscaping and sculptural traditions of Ian Hamilton Finlay or Rachel Whiteread, through to the extraordinary Duisberg Park, set in the former giant steelworks in the Ruhr Valley, now transformed into one of the most haunting and melancholy urban landscapes of our time.