El Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón , also called La Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón , was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana , Cuba to replace the Espada Cemetery in the Barrio de San Lázaro . Named for Christopher Columbus , the cemetery is noted for its many elaborately sculpted memorials. It is estimated the cemetery has more than 500 major mausoleums. Before the Espada Cemetery and the Colon Cemetery were built, interments took place in crypts at the various churches throughout Havana, for example, at the Havana Cathedral or Church Crypts in Havana Vieja .
26-607: The Colon Cemetery is one of the most important cemeteries in the world and is generally held to be one of the most important in Latin America in historical and architectural terms, second only to La Recoleta in Buenos Aires . Prior to the opening of the Colon Cemetery, Havana's dead were laid to rest in the crypts of local churches and then, beginning in 1806, at Havana's newly opened Espada Cemetery located in
52-573: A means for patrician families to display their wealth and power with ever more elaborate tombs and mausoleums. The north main entrance is marked by a gateway decorated with biblical reliefs and topped by a marble sculpture by José Vilalta Saavedra : Faith, Hope and Charity. Some of the most important and elaborate tombs lie between the main gate and the Capilla Central. The Monumento a los Bomberos (Firemen's Monument) built by Spanish sculptor Agustín Querol and architect Julio M Zapata, commemorates
78-555: A monument to the Discoverer next to the remains, which ironically never happened of the Cathedral of Havana, being the first bust erected throughout the continent (1828) and the only one that exists in the whole world with a beard. So the cemetery dedicated to the great Admiral, full of famous sculptures lacks one by which he was given his name." The Cementerio Colón measures 620 by 800 meters (50 hectares, 122.5 acres). Designed by
104-685: A monument to the firefighters who lost their lives in the great fire of May 17, 1890. As baseball is a leading sport in Cuba, the cemetery has two monuments to baseball players from the Cuban League . The first was erected in 1942 and the second in 1951 for members of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame . In February 1898, the recovered bodies of sailors who died on the United States Navy battleship Maine were interred in
130-400: Is 21.66 meters high, 34.40 meters in length, and 2.50 meters in thickness, executed with variations by Eugenio Rayneri Sorrentino for and eventually crowned, by José Vilalta Saavedra , by the sculptural group Fe. Esperanza y Caridad ( Faith, Hope and Charity ). The first stone for its construction was placed on October 30, 1871, since 1868 burials have been carried out. The Colon Cemetery has
156-431: Is currently at a premium and as such after three years remains are removed from their tombs, boxed and placed in a storage building. Yet, for all its elegance and grandeur, the Colon Cemetery conceals as much as it displays. Empty tombs and desecrated family chapels disfigure the stately march of family memorials even in the most prominent of the avenues, and away from the central cross-streets are in ruin. Many of these are
182-657: Is laid out in sections like city blocks, with wide tree-lined main walkways branching into sidewalks filled with mausoleums. These mausoleums are still being used by rich families in Argentina that have their own vault and keep their deceased there. While many of the mausoleums are in fine shape and well-maintained, others have fallen into disrepair. Several can be found with broken glass and littered with rubbish. Among many memorials are works by notable Argentine sculptors, Lola Mora and Luis Perlotti for instance. The tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak , due to its unusual design,
208-420: Is of special interest. The cemetery also hosts a colony of stray cats which has also become an attraction. As of 2024, the resident feline population has decreased from a peak of 60 in the 1960s to about 12 due to adoption drives. Almendares River The Almendares River is a river that runs for 47 km in the western part of Cuba . It originates from the east of Tapaste and flows north-west into
234-547: Is subdivided in turn by two other streets that intersect at right angles. Five squares are formed at the intersections, the main one of which is the Central Chapel, with an octagonal floor plan and surrounded by portals, a Loire project completed with modifications by Francisco Marcotegui. The cemetery is laid out roughly on a north–south axis, parallel to the last stretch of the Almendares River , and against
260-667: The Barrio de San Lazaro and near the cove of Juan Guillen close to the San Lázaro Leper Hospital and the Casa de Beneficencia . When locals realized there would be a need for a larger space for their community for the deceased (due to a cholera outbreak in 1868), planning began for the Colon Cemetery. The Colón is a Catholic cemetery and has elaborate monuments, tombs and statues by 19th and 20th century artists. Plots were assigned according to social class, and soon became
286-529: The Galician architect Calixto Arellano de Loira y Cardoso, a graduate of Madrid's Royal Academy of Arts of San Fernando, who became the Colón's first resident when he died and before his work was completed. It was built between 1871 and 1886, on former farmland. Laid out in a grid similar to El Vedado by numbered and lettered streets it becomes an urban microcosm of the city. The cemetery contains works by some of
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#1732776628134312-576: The Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires , Argentina . It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón , presidents of Argentina , Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy , and military commanders such as Julio Argentino Roca . In 2011, the BBC hailed it as one of the world's best cemeteries, and in 2013, CNN listed it among the 10 most beautiful cemeteries in
338-595: The Straits of Florida . The river acts as a water supply for Havana . The final stretch divides the municipalities of Plaza de la Revolución ( Vedado district) and Playa ( Miramar district ). Part of the river valley forms the Almendares Park or Metropolitan Park of Havana (PMH), a few kilometers upstream from the ocean. The Cuban aborigines called it Casiguaguas , and the first colonizers named it La Chorrera, and later renamed it Almendares in honor of
364-568: The Colon Cemetery. In December 1899 the bodies were disinterred and brought back to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery . Also buried here are three British Commonwealth servicemen who are commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission ; a Canadian Army officer of World War I , and a Royal Engineers officer and Royal Canadian Navy seaman of World War II . The remains of
390-499: The casualties are located in the mausoleum of the Anglo-American Welfare Association, with the names inscribed on the central memorial which also forms the entrance to the underground ossuary. [REDACTED] Media related to Cementerio Cristóbal Colón at Wikimedia Commons La Recoleta Cemetery La Recoleta Cemetery ( Spanish : Cementerio de la Recoleta ) is a cemetery located in
416-412: The cemetery's 50 hectares. The area of the cemetery is defined by rank and social status of the dead with distinct areas: priests, soldiers, brotherhoods, the wealthy, the poor, infants, victims of epidemics, pagans and the condemned. The best preserved and grandest tombs stand on or near the central avenues and their axes. With more than 800,000 graves and 1 million interments, space in the Colon Cemetery
442-607: The current facade of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral . The cemetery was last remodeled in 1881, while Torcuato de Alvear was mayor of the city, by the Italian architect Juan Antonio Buschiazzo . Set in 5.5 hectares (14 acres), the site contains 4691 vaults, all above ground, of which 94 have been declared National Historical Monuments by the Argentine government and are protected by
468-433: The design diagram of the cemetery, which employs several Greek crosses at different scales thus forming an architectural tapestry. The main avenues, Avenida Cristobal Colón, Obispo Espada, and Obispo Fray Jacinto, at six hundred by eight hundred meters, is the first cross at the scale of the city (red cross-areal photo). Calixto Arellano de Loira y Cardoso was also the designer of the main portal, of Romanesque inspiration. It
494-535: The first public cemetery in Buenos Aires. Inaugurated on 17 November of the same year under the name of Cementerio del Norte (Northern Cemetery), those responsible for its creation were the then-Governor Martin Rodríguez , who would be eventually buried in the cemetery, and government minister Bernardino Rivadavia . The 1822 layout was done by French civil engineer Próspero Catelin, who also designed
520-438: The most distinguished Cuban artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Miguel Melero, José Vilalta de Saavedra, Rene Portocarrero, Rita longa, Eugenio Batista, Max Sorges Recio, Juan José Sicre, and others. The design follows the custom of laying out the plan with five crosses formed by perpendicularly intersecting streets. The two main avenues give rise to the central cross, each of the four resulting spaces, called barracks,
546-424: The state. The entrance to the cemetery is through neo-classical gates with tall Doric columns. The cemetery contains many elaborate marble mausoleums , decorated with statues, in a wide variety of architectural styles such as Art Deco , Art Nouveau , Baroque , and Neo-Gothic , and most materials used between 1880 and 1930 in the construction of tombs were imported from Paris and Milan . The entire cemetery
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#1732776628134572-406: The street grid of Vedado . It is on the north axis, thus its main streets are on the four cardinal points of the compass. Symbolized by a Greek cross , it represents the four directions of the earth and the spread of the gospel to all directions as well as the four platonic elements. We find Greek crosses against a yellow background along the perimeter fence enclosing the cemetery, as well as part of
598-509: The tombs of exiled families, whose problems with caring for their dead have been complicated by residency outside of Cuba since the Revolution of 1959 . María Argelia Vizcaino writes: "The first stone was placed on October 30, 1871 and before its extension completed in 1934, it had a capacity of 504,458 square meters. Rectangular in shape as a Roman-Byzantine-style Roman camp, with sidewalks, streets and listed roads, facilitating access to
624-667: The twenty eight firemen who died when a hardware shop in La Habana Vieja caught fire in 1890 In front of the main entrance, at the axes of the principal avenues Avenida Cristobal Colón, Obispo Espada, and Obispo Fray Jacinto, stands the Central Chapel modelled on Il Duomo in Florence is the octagonal Capilla Central (central chapel), the Capilla del Amor (Chapel of Love), built by Juan Pedro Baró for his wife Catalina Laza. On every side rectangular streets lead geometrically to
650-399: The visitor, (which in republican times was provided with a free map). Enrique Martínez y Martínez tells us in «Cuba Arquitectura y Urbanismo»: “It was the most remarkable religious construction that was made in the city during the nineteenth century”. The square located on the central street between the chapel and the huge doorway was called Christopher Columbus, because it was planned to erect
676-541: The world. Franciscan Recollect monks ( los recoletos ) arrived in this area, then the outskirts of Buenos Aires , in the early eighteenth century. The cemetery is built around the Recollect Convent ( Convento de la Recoleta ) and a church, Our Lady of the Pillar ( Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar ), built in 1732. The order was disbanded in 1822, and the garden of the convent converted into
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