6/21/10

Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, CA)

If the Old City Cemetery in Sacramento is the cottage garden of old cemeteries, I guess Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery is more about the English landscape tradition.

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The many curving paths invite wandering.

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But bring a hat or wear sunscreen.

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There is not much shade.

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(There is some.)

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Some nice, simple fountains too.

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Like the Victorian houses they lived in, many of the Victorian tombs are fabulously opulent as well.

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The terraced hillside topography lends itself to dramatic picture taking. Just walking around, you spend a lot of times looking up at things.

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It's interesting to think about all the money that went into these displays. Many great fortunes were built in California, but fortune is cyclical and California is all about boom and bust. How are the modern descendents of these great fortunes living today? Rich people don't bury themselves like this anymore which is too bad. Think about the great trends in cemetery architecture our descendants will miss out on.

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2 comments:

Pam/Digging said...

Some of these dead folks fancied themselves pharaohs it seems. Just look at all the pyramids and sphinxes! I would enjoy visiting this fanciful cemetery.

ryan said...

wow, i never noticed that pyramid. some family either thought very highly of themselves or else had a pretty good sense of humor. Olmsted designed the layout but i'm pretty sure he didn't design a pyramid.
that cemetery in sac is great.