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Letters to Eternity: Typefaces of the Prazeres Cemetery
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5954-7188
The Cemetery of Prazeres (freely translated to ‘Pleasures’) is the second largest in the Portuguese capital city, Lisbon. It was built after a cholera epidemic in 1833, and it is almost exclusively made up of private deposits [1]. It serves Lisbon’s west side population, where aristocratic residential districts were located in the nineteenth century (it remains today a very expensive area to live in). For this reason, it became the graveyard of the city’s most prominent families, whom, with their particular taste and financial means, ended up bestowing a certain monumentality to the site. The cult of death is particular in Portugal, where some investment is made in all kinds of ceremonial procedures, including ‘the last address’—privately owned small stone houses inside the cemetery, whereby families put their dead to rest: jazigos. Almost half of the cemetery is occupied by these small architectures for death, the family jazigos (it is said to be the biggest jazigo cemetery in Europe with more than 7000 of these monuments). The idea of the cemetery of the elite extended past the city’s geographical surroundings and became the place to bury the “great names” of Portuguese culture until present days (e.g., writers, singers, painters, actors). Within its walls, Catholic and the Masonic imagery compete (free masons were a important group in the organization of the regicide in 1910), along with tombs without specific group affiliation. Messages to immortalize people and their ideas and work are cut into stone or engraved in bronze with carefully designed texts and typefaces. These letters in the jazigos and tombstones contribute to the understanding of ideas and tastes, but also convictions and beliefs of these people. These aspects are made evident in the rich and varied symbolism that adorns these funerary places. Shapes along with text are carefully planned in the construction of everlasting memory. The relevance of these structures, the types and shapes that adorn them, the texts they immortalize, as well as the stories about the people who erected them can be a relevant source of information. Specifically, it can inform about the dynamics of communication and its respective symbolism within society; for example, in terms of wealth, power, prominence, affiliation, etc. Furthermore, it can have repercussions for heritage studies, tourism (namely, Dark Tourism, and design and art research. This paper focuses on these letters to eternity, the texts and shapes they produce, and what and how they memorialize. It reports a photography safari, through which examples were collected, and their subsequent analysis. The research focuses on the way memory is engraved into letters, the types chosen to do so, and the content and format used for it. Results are discussed in terms of the constructed taxonomies and future studies.
Letters to Eternity: Typefaces of the Prazeres Cemetery
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5954-7188
The Cemetery of Prazeres (freely translated to ‘Pleasures’) is the second largest in the Portuguese capital city, Lisbon. It was built after a cholera epidemic in 1833, and it is almost exclusively made up of private deposits [1]. It serves Lisbon’s west side population, where aristocratic residential districts were located in the nineteenth century (it remains today a very expensive area to live in). For this reason, it became the graveyard of the city’s most prominent families, whom, with their particular taste and financial means, ended up bestowing a certain monumentality to the site. The cult of death is particular in Portugal, where some investment is made in all kinds of ceremonial procedures, including ‘the last address’—privately owned small stone houses inside the cemetery, whereby families put their dead to rest: jazigos. Almost half of the cemetery is occupied by these small architectures for death, the family jazigos (it is said to be the biggest jazigo cemetery in Europe with more than 7000 of these monuments). The idea of the cemetery of the elite extended past the city’s geographical surroundings and became the place to bury the “great names” of Portuguese culture until present days (e.g., writers, singers, painters, actors). Within its walls, Catholic and the Masonic imagery compete (free masons were a important group in the organization of the regicide in 1910), along with tombs without specific group affiliation. Messages to immortalize people and their ideas and work are cut into stone or engraved in bronze with carefully designed texts and typefaces. These letters in the jazigos and tombstones contribute to the understanding of ideas and tastes, but also convictions and beliefs of these people. These aspects are made evident in the rich and varied symbolism that adorns these funerary places. Shapes along with text are carefully planned in the construction of everlasting memory. The relevance of these structures, the types and shapes that adorn them, the texts they immortalize, as well as the stories about the people who erected them can be a relevant source of information. Specifically, it can inform about the dynamics of communication and its respective symbolism within society; for example, in terms of wealth, power, prominence, affiliation, etc. Furthermore, it can have repercussions for heritage studies, tourism (namely, Dark Tourism, and design and art research. This paper focuses on these letters to eternity, the texts and shapes they produce, and what and how they memorialize. It reports a photography safari, through which examples were collected, and their subsequent analysis. The research focuses on the way memory is engraved into letters, the types chosen to do so, and the content and format used for it. Results are discussed in terms of the constructed taxonomies and future studies.
Letters to Eternity: Typefaces of the Prazeres Cemetery
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5954-7188
The Cemetery of Prazeres (freely translated to ‘Pleasures’) is the second largest in the Portuguese capital city, Lisbon. It was built after a cholera epidemic in 1833, and it is almost exclusively made up of private deposits [1]. It serves Lisbon’s west side population, where aristocratic residential districts were located in the nineteenth century (it remains today a very expensive area to live in). For this reason, it became the graveyard of the city’s most prominent families, whom, with their particular taste and financial means, ended up bestowing a certain monumentality to the site. The cult of death is particular in Portugal, where some investment is made in all kinds of ceremonial procedures, including ‘the last address’—privately owned small stone houses inside the cemetery, whereby families put their dead to rest: jazigos. Almost half of the cemetery is occupied by these small architectures for death, the family jazigos (it is said to be the biggest jazigo cemetery in Europe with more than 7000 of these monuments). The idea of the cemetery of the elite extended past the city’s geographical surroundings and became the place to bury the “great names” of Portuguese culture until present days (e.g., writers, singers, painters, actors). Within its walls, Catholic and the Masonic imagery compete (free masons were a important group in the organization of the regicide in 1910), along with tombs without specific group affiliation. Messages to immortalize people and their ideas and work are cut into stone or engraved in bronze with carefully designed texts and typefaces. These letters in the jazigos and tombstones contribute to the understanding of ideas and tastes, but also convictions and beliefs of these people. These aspects are made evident in the rich and varied symbolism that adorns these funerary places. Shapes along with text are carefully planned in the construction of everlasting memory. The relevance of these structures, the types and shapes that adorn them, the texts they immortalize, as well as the stories about the people who erected them can be a relevant source of information. Specifically, it can inform about the dynamics of communication and its respective symbolism within society; for example, in terms of wealth, power, prominence, affiliation, etc. Furthermore, it can have repercussions for heritage studies, tourism (namely, Dark Tourism, and design and art research. This paper focuses on these letters to eternity, the texts and shapes they produce, and what and how they memorialize. It reports a photography safari, through which examples were collected, and their subsequent analysis. The research focuses on the way memory is engraved into letters, the types chosen to do so, and the content and format used for it. Results are discussed in terms of the constructed taxonomies and future studies.
Letters to Eternity: Typefaces of the Prazeres Cemetery
Springer ser. in des. and Innovation
Duarte, Emilia (editor) / Rosa, Carlos (editor) / Falcão, Gonçalo (author)
UNIDCOM/IADE International Conference Senses & Sensibility ; 2019 ; Lisbon, Portugal
2022-01-13
13 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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