Green-Wood Columbarium
Platt Byard Dovell White

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Following the form of an existing hemicycle of urn burials and integrated with the circulation between Green-Wood's great Gate and its renovated Chapel, the new Tranquility Garden Columbarium expands the inventory of commemorative structures in Green-Wood's extraordinary landscape, making possible a new experience of space, light, water and flowers by its pools, fountain and under its wood-framed pergolas.

Consisting of three free-standing pavilions, a memorial obelisk, and a perimeter of garden urn walls, the new Columbarium provides over six thousand interior and over three thousand exterior urn spaces, assuring Green-Wood's continued ability to serve as a place of mourning and rest for thousands of additional families.

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Like Green-Wood's Hillside Mausoleum, its Tranquility Garden explores the columbarium as a building type, fitting niches into an arc of pavilions focused on a glass obelisk and a reflecting pool.

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Photo: Jonathan Wallen

Sited between Richard Upjohn's great gate and Warren and Wetmore's chapel, the addition completes the astonishing slope of obelisks and tombs opposite the cemetery entry, uplifts some neighboring 1950s buildings, and reanchors a great American landscape experience.

Drawing courtesy Platt Byard Dovell White
Sketch

Drawing courtesy Platt Byard Dovell White
Site Plan

Drawing courtesy Platt Byard Dovell White
Section