This project proposes converting Chicago’s Old Post Office building, which has fallen to disuse, into an urban burial site for the people of Chicago, and in turn anticipates that a new burial ritual involving the adjacent Chicago River which becomes unique to the city. The project proposes a river landing where funeral barges can disembark, leading to large corten steel doors which open to reveal a Remembrance Hall with funeral chapels.
Light and air enter the crypt levels above through the open metal façade alluding to the hive-like workspaces of the surrounding Loop district. The new façade reorients the building to the river; corten steel cladding at the roadway tunnel that punctures the building creates a memento mori for visitors entering and leaving the Loop.