Hypertopia. Challenging cemeteries idea: historical urban outposts between preservation and transformation

A rethinking of burial spaces and their relationship with the city is the aim of ’Rethinking lastscapes Perspectives (R.l.P.)’, the multidisciplinary research project financed at the University of Naples Federico II in the framework of which the research proposed here is conducted. This paper seeks to examine cemeteries primarily in terms of their positional value. They are considered and proposed as potentially strategic in the context of the contemporary transformation of the city. The paper will propose a background in which the cemetery is examined in relation to the urban context in which it is generally embedded, in order to understand its elements, reasons, developments and even entanglements that we inherit today. Next, the demonstrative case proposed by R.l.P. research – the cemetery system of the Poggioreale hill in Naples – will be examined to show an exemplary morphological process related to the proposition of cemeteries as historical urban outposts. Then, through research by design, the project proposal "T'era Park" is presented as a first design experiment within the theoretical proposal of the research: the transition from cemetery as heterotopia to cemetery as hypertopia.