The tombscape is defined as a combination of related views, spatial configurations, material juxtapositions, and cultural associations among a group of tombs and their associated spaces.

9-L Tombscape

The tombscape is in many ways akin to the historic district, pulling from a variety of sources to create a context that is both self-defined and often part of a greater context, in this case, a cultural landscape.

The memorial function of the cemetery’s tombscape, however, gives it a context of a unique character beyond the historic district, reflecting an approach to design that, in addition to its practical functions, seeks to order the incomprehensible phenomenon of death. The reasoned application of classical decorative modes and orthogonal path planning has become disoriented in its dealings with death, and what results is the tombscape, a dynamic jumble of form, space, and context. The tombscapes in the St. Louis 1 Cemetery are varied according to their associated tombs, their views, and their placement within the cemetery.

Alley Number 9-L is a section of the cemetery that illustrates a tombscape with more intimate proportions and a more traditional alley form. Capped on its end by the Marigny Tomb, Alley No. 9-L runs east/west and spans the distance between Conti Alley and Center Alley. Its diversity of tombs, in type, age and size gives it a richness characteristic of the cemetery in general, and illustrates the cumulative meaning of the tombs, which, when seen as a group, is greater than the significance of the tombs as separate entities. Some tombs are commonly seen as more culturally significant in the group, such as the de Marigny Tomb and the French Society Tomb, but the notion of the tombscape recognizes the phenomenological impact of the tombs together, whose individual material, spatial, and cultural features are informed by and participate within the greater context of the group. This context extends beyond the group of tombs to include views and viewsheds that form the tombscape as well. The collage below shows a view of this alley looking southwest toward the de Marigny tomb.

Because of the high degree of integrity of its various components, this alley has been chosen to serve as a model for tombscape restoration. The tombscape restoration / maintenance process is being funded by Save America's Treasures.

To initially schedule the alley’s complexity into phases of work, the database and GIS maps were used to classify tombs according to their condition and integrity. Once Alley number 9-L was pulled from the master map of the cemetery, the conditions coded in the GIS map were compared with site notes and photographs to verify the accuracy of the survey and to look for conditions which might fall outside of the quantifiable factors described in the database. A final list of activities for each phase was compiled with changes to be made in the individual tombs, landscape elements and other tombscape components.