CEMETERIO SAN JOSE

CEMETERIO SAN JOSE / Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

While trying find information on the Memorial Necropole Ecumenica in Sao Paolo and Brazilian vertical cemeteries in general I stumbled across (thank you Google Translate) the Cemeterio San Jose in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul at skyscrapercity.org. From what I can gather the built structures are at least 30 years old and as you can see from the streetview and map above, the entire complex is vast.

At a guess I would assume that the bodies are placed horizontally, as the frontpieces of each tomb look too large for an ossuary.

VERTICAL CEMETERY / Architectural Solution to Cemetery Overcrowding

Brazil built its first crematorium in 1983 in Sao Paulo at around the same time as the San Jose Cemetery would have been built. It seems as though Brazil was attempting to solve the overcrowding of its cemeteries architecturally rather than relying on the technological solution of cremation. As cremation is becoming more difficult to sustain due to ever more stringent environmental regulations, I would suggest that they had the right idea.