Designing For The Dead: The Art and Architecture Of Laurel Hill Cemetery

Noted architects like John Notman, William Strickland, Frank Furness, John J. McArthur, C.C. Zantzinger, Horace Trumbauer and Napoleon LeBrun competed fiercely for the chance to design for the dead. Join us on a walking tour of Laurel Hill Cemetery, where we will see monuments created by these early architects, as well as artists such as Alexander Milne Calder, his son Alexander Stirling Calder, and sculptress Harriet Frishmuth, whose works grace many of Laurel Hill’s memorials.

Tour stops will also include the gravesites of portraitist Thomas Sully and watercolorist William Trost Richards. The tour will examine changing tastes and fashions in grave markers over the past two centuries, from the classical obelisks and urns of the Federal period, to the richly decorated crosses of the Gothic Revival, to the massive mausoleums of the Gilded Age.

Cost: $12/adults; $10/students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or in advance by phone (215) 228-8200 or online.

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