Main avenue

The most important families of the city chose this location for their interments. It became an open air museum due to architectural and sculptural works: it is the largest open air museum in the city.

The middle classes wanted their neighbours and coming generations to know how powerful and important they were, their great economic power, especially those coming from humble backgrounds. We found families of renowned families linked to maritime commerce with Cuba and other Latin-American countries such as the Fernández Balsera, the Zaldúa-Carvajal, the Marquis of Terverga, the Maqua-Escandón, the Carvajal family… have been buried in these places. Here, art glorifies those who die, forgetting about our fear and terror of death.

The most important Asturian artists and sculptors participate in these projects: Manuel de Busto, Cipriano Folgueras, Faustino Nicoli, Ricardo Marcos Bausá, and some from Avilés as Armando Fernández Cueto, Ángel Arias Falcón or Federico Ureña. They use very popular artistic styles in European an American cemeteries. Several of these artists had also designed the houses of these clients, either in the city centre or the indiano neighbourhood of Villalegre.

Many constructors, workshops, marble working shops, etc. work along them developing a huge activity, especially between 1890 and 1920 when the cemetery begins to operate.

La Carriona is known for its carved stone or Carrara marble hypogea, interments in underground crypts of remarkable size. A room ressembling a sarcophagus is built and terminated in a high sculptural set. Chapels and mausolea are located in minor places and in a different way as done in other Asturian cemeteries, while niches have been recently introduced. Thus, hypogea are the most outstanding funeral structure in the Municipal Cemetery of La Carriona.