In addressing the gnarly question of how to add onto a building in a cemetery that is a historic landmark, architects William Rawn Associates of Boston came up with a well-known modernist, but still timeless, answer: glass. Bigelow Chapel, an early 19^th-century Gothic Revival structure in Mount Auburn Cemetery, on the edge of Cam­bridge, Massachusetts, needed an extension to accommodate memorial services, weddings, receptions, meetings, and a crematory. But because it is perched on a small plot on the top of a hill overlooking the 175-acre landscaped garden and burial grounds, created in 1831, any new construction threatened to obscure its picturesque architecture, which is distinguished by its stolid Quincy-granite walls and minaret-like spires.

The original 6,300-square-foot building, realized in 1846, was designed by Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a physician and botanist and Harvard professor who was one of the founders of Mount Auburn (although the architectural drawings were executed by a local practitioner). Its 12-foot-diameter stained-glass rose window above the south-facing entrance and its simple groin-vaulted interior awed visitors attending services throughout the decades. But by 2016, it was clear that the chapel, which seats 75 people, could use more space, as well as benefit from upgraded acoustics, accessibility, and lighting, not to mention the construction of a more energy-efficient crematory.