Building on the Burial Ground: Notes on the Functional And Cultural Significance of American Cemeteries

Author: Dr. Keith Eggener
Wednesday, December 7th 7-8:30pm MRRL Art Gallery
The newest book in the Norton/Library of Congress takes readers on a visual journey from early churchyards and family plots to the establishment of the nation's first rural cemeteries of the nineteenth century, to the expansive memorial parks and 'green' burials of today. With more than 600 archival photographs and plans that shed light on the great diversity of burial structures and traditions, this comprehensive sourcebook introduces readers to cemeteries' impressive diversity.
A native of Portland, Oregon, Keith Eggener lives in Columbia, Missouri, where he teaches architectural history and American art at the University of Missouri. He is the author of Luis Barragan's Gardens of El Pedregal and of numerous articles on Mexican and U.S. art, architecture and urbanism. He also edited the collection American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader and has been on the editorial staffs of the 60-voume Buildings of the United States series and the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. His latest book, Cemeteries (part of the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks series), was published December 2010.