Alan Maskin Imagines his Future Tomb as Part of IN MEMORIAM Exhibition at Yale
2020/02/26
Hosted by Yale School of Architecture students, the exhibition IN MEMORIAM invites 30 architects, including Olson Kundig principal and owner Alan Maskin, to design their own tomb.
“The design of a tomb is an inherently narcissistic thing – especially if it’s your own,” says Maskin. “But considering new notions of impermanence and remembrance was intriguing to my colleague and collaborator, Juan Ferreira, and me.”
Their submission, titled “Recompose.Life,” imagines a transition to a new system of burial and after-death care, inspired by Katrina Spade’s project, Recompose. The Recompose process converts human remains into organic soil, helping nourish new life after death. Maskin and Ferreira’s three-dimensional diorama illustrates the sequence of the human composting process (following Maskin’s demise) and the potential for the resulting soil to support the growth and restoration of oxygen-producing forests. Katrina Spade, Alan Maskin, Blair Payson and Nick Ladd are designing the world’s first Recompose human composting facility, set to open in Seattle in 2021.
The exhibition, curated by Jerome Tryon, David Schaengold and Luka Pajovic, is on display at the Yale Architecture Gallery in New Haven, CT, until March 28, 2020.