Makers’ Markers
Graceland Cemetery, in Chicago.
Toward the north end of Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, around Lake Willowmere, lies a cluster of graves belonging to the city’s most famous architects, among them Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Fazlur Khan. Henry Kuehn discovered this so-called cemetery of architects while serving as director of the Graceland Cemetery tour, and it sparked a quest to research and catalogue architects’ gravesites all around the country. At the heart of his pursuit was a desire to understand how these monument builders are remembered in death. The results, recorded in Kuehn’s new book, Architects’ Gravesites: A Serendipitous Guide, are as varied as the built structures those men and women left behind. Below is a selection, together with an excerpt from Paul Goldberger’s afterword. —Nicole Rudick
To come to the end of this book is to conclude a journey across the United States, across architectural history, and into human character. I am not sure that the final resting places of celebrated and accomplished architects tell us all that much about their work—after all, few of
