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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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