Overview
A chapel reduced to one gesture: a slot of daylight falling the full height of the wall behind the altar.
- Discipline
- Spiritual & Cultural
- Type
- Chapel
- Imagery
- CGI visualisation
- Frames
- 2
Intent
A chapel reduced to one move. A full-height slot of daylight runs beside the altar wall and lights a single cross, and there is little else in the room to compete with it. The plan puts the light where the congregation is already looking, so nothing further has to be added.
Language
Plain wall surfaces, one vertical opening and a cross. Light is treated as the finish here: it washes down the rear wall and gives the surface its texture. Nothing is applied that would interrupt the fall of daylight from the slot to the floor.
Features
- 01
The slot window
A single full-height opening beside the altar wall. Because it runs the whole height it lights the wall as a plane rather than a patch, and the intensity changes with the hour and the weather instead of holding one fixed setting.
- 02
The cross
The cross is lit by the slot rather than by a fitting, so it stands against a wall that is bright beside it and falls away into shadow further off. The light and the object are the same gesture, made once.
- 03
The altar wall
Light washes down the rear wall behind the altar and stops there. Keeping the wall plain lets that wash be read as a gradient across the full height of the surface, and that gradient is the only ornament the room carries.
Specification
- Walls
- Plain rendered surfaces, no applied finish
- Opening
- Full-height slot glazing beside the altar
- Focus
- Single cross to the altar wall
- Tones
- Pale wall, daylight, shadow
One full-height slot admits all the daylight the room needs. It washes down the rear wall and across the cross, so the brightness moves through the day and the chapel is never lit the same way twice.
Frames
Chapel altar with light washing down the rear wall
In closing
A room with one idea in it, carried out completely. There is nothing left to add, and once the light is falling correctly across the wall there is nothing left to adjust either.