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The Architect’s
View of the Chapel and Music Building By Neil Larson
Zoning and parking requirements by the City of San Diego and the small site limited the seating capacity of the Chapel and Music Rehearsal Room. As a consequence, the building is a tightly packed arrangement of the designated spaces. There is a clear link between the Sanctuary and new facility through the size and shape of the existing Transepts, vertical stained glass window wall unit and low curved roofs. These current elements have been reinterpreted to fulfill a new design program. The building’s form evolved from the internal functions. Low ceiling service spaces surround higher ceiling main rooms. The Chapel is served by an entry foyer, dressing room and chair storage while the Rehearsal Room is preceded by vestibules, movable music storage, warming kitchen and offices. By contrast, the low ceilings also serve to make the lofty main spaces appear larger than their actual size. The building layout is deceptively simple but becomes complicated at the juncture of the various height spaces. Because the whole is carefully divided up into a number of related parts, the size is never overwhelming nor in competition with the Sanctuary. Emphasis on natural light in the Sanctuary is shifted to the more enclosed building site with lantern-like skylights and largely north facing vertical windows. These gather light and reflect it throughout the Chapel in varying intensities from hour to hour, season to season. Overlapping wall planes provide continuously changing veils of light. Only limited west sun is allowed in the interior to avoid the glare that is sometimes experienced in the Sanctuary. A large wooden cross is the focus of the Chancel in keeping with the meditative nature of the Chapel. It can be relocated to the rear for other types of services. The emphasis on flexibility is also seen in the use of single chairs rather than pews. Chairs with ganging devices can be set up in any number to match small or large groups. A suspended platform above the seating area is available for a future pipe organ installation. The dominant features of the Rehearsal Hall are the room height so that the sopranos can hear the basses and vice versa (not possible now in the Sanctuary Basement) plus a large curved wall behind the stepped choir platform. Acoustic block is placed on this wall as well as the Chapel side walls to diffuse sound and add textural interest. A pedestrian "street" within a landscaped courtyard connects the Sanctuary and parking to the new building. The north/south axis points to the hillside Bell Tower on one end and glimpses of Mission Valley on the other. A new elevator in the court serves both levels of the Sanctuary that echoes the present unit next to Linder Hall. The project has benefited the campus buildings as a result of the upgrade of main power service, waterproofing of the leaking Sanctuary Basement wall, improving of the Sanctuary roof and underground drainage, adding of rest rooms for busy Sunday mornings and providing of agency conforming accessible parking for the disabled and seniors on both sides of the building. We look forward to the contribution that this project will make in the community when completed in December. |
Now that the structural walls
are in place, the promise of the 40 year dream can begin to be realized. The
building design started by interviewing church volunteers and staff that
would be directly affected by the project. One of the consensus programmatic
directives was to capture the spirit of the existing Sanctuary without
reproducing its form. The meaning of the resulting building will only come
in relation to its infusion of life affirming church programs, its
surroundings and "light" that is brought to the interior as well as to the
community.