Family Memorial:
An untimely death in this Japanese-American family
awakened their desires for a family monument. The senior family
members live in New York state, where a local cemetery was offering
families of Japanese origin the opportunity to build traditional
memorials. This proposal for this monument is a departure from the
usual stela form, but contains the same traditional elements: an
interior chamber in which to store the individual cremains, flat front
and back surfaces for the inscriptions, and a grill for the burning of
incense. This interpretation features a ribbed bronze roof that is
affixed to the memorial with bronze cuffs. Removing these cuffs frees
the roof for removal and access to the urns. The urns are placed on
interior grates which suspend them above the interior drywell that
conducts standing water away from the tomb’s interior. The front and
rear flattened faces of the memorial display the inscriptions in
contrast to the rising curve of the side walls. The bronze incense
grille was designed to be cast in a decorative pattern of interlocking
K’s (the Anglicized lead initial of the family’s surname) and is
placed low on the front to be easily used from a kneeling position.
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