The concept is to experience being outside and inside at the same time. The building's openings, large and small, frame different pieces of nature, so that images that change from minute to minute shape the space, and space and time change together. The chapel's close, inseparable coexistence with nature, the meeting of the created world and the transcendent, defines the essence and spirit of the building. The Franciscan chapel stands in natural surroundings in the Zala hills, on a Franciscan youth farm. When it was designed, two buildings were already there, and together with the natural conditions they determined its position. The three buildings together enclose a U-shaped courtyard as one whole, and the chapel completes the courtyard and organises the group of buildings into a unit. The Franciscan farm is a children's camp and forest school, a small island where school groups and families can spend their free time and get to know one another and the created world. For the chapel, the task was to design a building that is simple and inexpensive to build, and that, besides its everyday, secular functions (a community space and, in the gallery, summer accommodation), is able to house the chapel with dignity and give back its sacredness. The place of the sanctuary is marked next to the altar with modest but expressive architectural means: the large volume of air and the timber cladding that turns inwards at the sanctuary. Through a cut strip in the south facade, there are views of the two huge oak trees in front of the house and of the pasture opposite. The building finds its place with natural simplicity in the rolling landscape. The two old oak trees in front of the sanctuary protect and mark the place, and the lives of the chapel and the two trees have by now grown together. “The chapel nestles poetically into nature, forming the small group of buildings into a close unity. The two large oak trees mark out and shelter the building, and in their shade the chapel's simple, poetically laconic mass creates a natural dialogue between artificial and natural forms. The modesty of the building is a welcome counterpoint to the self-promoting architectural attitude that is fashionable today.” Magyar Építőművészet 2007/4. IV International Prize for Sacred Architecture (2008, Pavia, Italy)
photo: Tamás Bujnovszky, Gábor Sajtos
design by sagra
The concept is to experience being outside and inside at the same time. The building's openings, large and small, frame different pieces of nature, so that images that change from minute to minute shape the space, and space and time change together. The chapel's close, inseparable coexistence with nature, the meeting of the created world and the transcendent, defines the essence and spirit of the building. The Franciscan chapel stands in natural surroundings in the Zala hills, on a Franciscan youth farm. When it was designed, two buildings were already there, and together with the natural conditions they determined its position. The three buildings together enclose a U-shaped courtyard as one whole, and the chapel completes the courtyard and organises the group of buildings into a unit. The Franciscan farm is a children's camp and forest school, a small island where school groups and families can spend their free time and get to know one another and the created world. For the chapel, the task was to design a building that is simple and inexpensive to build, and that, besides its everyday, secular functions (a community space and, in the gallery, summer accommodation), is able to house the chapel with dignity and give back its sacredness. The place of the sanctuary is marked next to the altar with modest but expressive architectural means: the large volume of air and the timber cladding that turns inwards at the sanctuary. Through a cut strip in the south facade, there are views of the two huge oak trees in front of the house and of the pasture opposite. The building finds its place with natural simplicity in the rolling landscape. The two old oak trees in front of the sanctuary protect and mark the place, and the lives of the chapel and the two trees have by now grown together. “The chapel nestles poetically into nature, forming the small group of buildings into a close unity. The two large oak trees mark out and shelter the building, and in their shade the chapel's simple, poetically laconic mass creates a natural dialogue between artificial and natural forms. The modesty of the building is a welcome counterpoint to the self-promoting architectural attitude that is fashionable today.” Magyar Építőművészet 2007/4. IV International Prize for Sacred Architecture (2008, Pavia, Italy)
photo: Tamás Bujnovszky, Gábor Sajtos
design by sagra
The concept is to experience being outside and inside at the same time. The building's openings, large and small, frame different pieces of nature, so that images that change from minute to minute shape the space, and space and time change together. The chapel's close, inseparable coexistence with nature, the meeting of the created world and the transcendent, defines the essence and spirit of the building. The Franciscan chapel stands in natural surroundings in the Zala hills, on a Franciscan youth farm. When it was designed, two buildings were already there, and together with the natural conditions they determined its position. The three buildings together enclose a U-shaped courtyard as one whole, and the chapel completes the courtyard and organises the group of buildings into a unit. The Franciscan farm is a children's camp and forest school, a small island where school groups and families can spend their free time and get to know one another and the created world. For the chapel, the task was to design a building that is simple and inexpensive to build, and that, besides its everyday, secular functions (a community space and, in the gallery, summer accommodation), is able to house the chapel with dignity and give back its sacredness. The place of the sanctuary is marked next to the altar with modest but expressive architectural means: the large volume of air and the timber cladding that turns inwards at the sanctuary. Through a cut strip in the south facade, there are views of the two huge oak trees in front of the house and of the pasture opposite. The building finds its place with natural simplicity in the rolling landscape. The two old oak trees in front of the sanctuary protect and mark the place, and the lives of the chapel and the two trees have by now grown together. “The chapel nestles poetically into nature, forming the small group of buildings into a close unity. The two large oak trees mark out and shelter the building, and in their shade the chapel's simple, poetically laconic mass creates a natural dialogue between artificial and natural forms. The modesty of the building is a welcome counterpoint to the self-promoting architectural attitude that is fashionable today.” Magyar Építőművészet 2007/4. IV International Prize for Sacred Architecture (2008, Pavia, Italy)
photo: Tamás Bujnovszky, Gábor Sajtos
design by sagra
