The Cuadrado Cemetery

El Cuadrado Luxburg-Carolath (“The Luxburg Carolath Square” in English) is one of the most important and oldest operating cemeteries in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Luxburg-Carolath Cemetery was built between 1876 and 1877 and has over 10,000 interments. The Cuadrado is privately owned and operated by the Venezuelan German Swiss Luxburg Carolath Foundation. The long full name of the Foundation today is “The Foundation of the Grafen von Luxburg Fursten zu Carolath-Beuthen und Prinzen von Schoenaich-Carolath”

The Cuadrado cemetery is situated in Avenida Las Delicias in the city of Maracaibo, capital of the Zulia State. The second largest city of Venezuela. The cemetery is one of the oldest in the country and was officially established the 12th of November of 1879 and named “Nuevo Cementerio” (“New Cemetery in Spanish) before being renamed as “El Cuadrado”.

El Cuadrado Luxburg-Carolath was declared a national, regional and municipal patrimony since 2005. The Luxburg Carolath Foundation is the official owner & administrator of the cemetery.

The Luxburg Carolath Foundation received The Cuadrado cemetery as a donation in August 2019. During the donation process the name of the cemetery was added by the last owners and became – “The Square of the Grafen von Luxburg Fursten zu Carolath-Beuthen und Prinzen von Schoenaich-Carolath”

The state of the cemetery was and is still in total disrepair – 95% of graves have been desecrated, all columbarium destroyed and looted. The Luxburg Carolath Foundation has already carried out the cleaning works and urgent repairs of the cemetery and began to prepare a plan for the recovery and reconstruction of the cemetery in conjunction with the Government of Zulia and the Mayor’s Office of Maracaibo. Because it is a national, state and municipal heritage, all works must be approved by all levels of state.

El Cuadrado is the first cemetery in Venezuela to have now a coat of arms, own flag, own anthem and special flagpole. It is a unique heritage cemetery in all Latin America mainly because it is composed of other 3 cemeteries that were incorporated into it in 1942 because of the city of Maracaibo reconstruction. Which are:

The General Cemetery of the city of Maracaibo or also known as Colonial Cemetery or Old Cemetery was inaugurated in 1829. The cemetery of the foreigners, also known as cemetery of Germans or Englishmen inaugurated in 1834 – in this cemetery were buried all Protestant Christians Jewish Evangelical Christians Muslims etc. – everybody not Roman Catholic. The most famous cemetery of Santa Lucia founded in 1881. The three iconic historical cemeteries were closed in 1942 and all dead people transported to the El Cuadrado. De facto Luxburg Carolath cemetery contains inside 3 different historical cemeteries in one. El Cuadrado conserves today the different cultures nationalities religions history and genealogy of Marabinos and Zualianos since 1829 which represents a huge social, multi religion, unique ecumenical, historical and cultural values.

The reconstruction project mainly consists of preserving the cemetery for future generations, further ensuring its cultural historical status, building a church within the cemetery to return to the past tradition of having a cemetery built around a church. The church will be called “The Union of the church” (Spanish – La Union de la Iglecia) in recognition of many citizens of different races, nationalities and religions buried in the grounds of el Cuadrado. This name was proposed by the World Union of Ecumenical Ecclesiastic Churches (Spanish Conferencia Ecumenica Ecleciastica Mundial CEEM). Reconstruction of old and construction of the new columbarium; high retaining walls and security; professional landscaping work in planting trees that no longer destroy graves with their roots; reconstruction of the entrance building with bathroom and office facilities. The Foundation will hire external companies and experts in administration and construction of cemeteries in order to fully preserve the ancient graves, stile and the history of the cemetery. The styles of architecture will best represent El Cuadrado Luxburg-Carolath. This will be done for the first time in a Venezuelan cemetery: until today, no professional cemetery architectural design has been made in Venezuelan cemeteries.