After fifinishing the design of Brion Cemetery, Carlo Scarpa turned his attention to a public cemetery in Modena, Italy. However, eventually it was Aldo Rossi who won the design competition for the Modena site a few years later in 1971. As a representative of Rossi’s architectural work, the deathly air of the San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena shows a strong affinity with the metaphysical art of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian painter active during the early- to mid-twentieth century. This paper discusses the theoretical implication of that parallel. It is argued that Rossi’s design in Modena indicates the existential dilemma produced by philosophical dualism. In contrast to it, Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery illustrates a gentle atmosphere of joy. Borrowing Heidegger’s notion of gathering and dwelling, the paper suggests a new philosophical meaning of Scarpa’s design and argues that Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery could provide a solution to the dilemma embodied in Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena.