The "virtual home" and the real housing. Relationships between sepulchers and settlement

Abstract

The architecture of the tomb and of cemeteries expresses the concept of the house and the city. It features their typology, as a consequence of social behaviour.
The crisis of cemeteries that follows the impairment of architectural quality in the postwar interventions corresponds to the identity crisis of both contemporary society and urban periphery, since architecture reflects the values of the ones who inhabit the city, such as the house shows those of its owners.
The architectural survey of Parma cemetery explains the relationship between architecture and society in the relations between collective and individual burials. The generalization of this example provides tools for understanding the evolution of funerary architecture in the definition of settlements and housing types, which express the changing values of the society.