Ecumenical Chapel

Cuernavaca, Mexico

Photo © Jaime Navarro

Drawing © BNKR Arquitectura

Gebedshuizen

Architecten: BNKR Arquitectura

Locatie: Cuernavaca, Mexico
Jaar: 2013
Partner in Charge: Esteban Suarez
Design Team: Emelio Barjau, Jaime Sol, Jorge Alcantar, Christian Morales, Gloria Castillo, Montserrat Escobar, Marcell Ibarrola, Fernando May
Structure: Juan Felipe Heredia / DAE
MEP: Sylvia Roman / MmasXpresiones
Lighting: Ricardo Noriegga and Santiago Bautista / NorieggaIluminadores

Some customers visited La Estaancia Chapel and contacted us to make a private chapel for their weekend house at Cuernavaca. They wanted an Ecumenical Chapel, a non-religious chapel, a chapel to meditate. They also liked La Estancia Chapel, but they wanted something more discreet, something they couldn't see from their house but they wanted to be spectacular at the same time. They didn't refer to something "formally spectacular", but rather they wanted to feel something special when they were inside, something similar to the feeling of being in La Estancia or Sunset Chapel.

Now ... If La Estancia Chapel celebrates life and Sunset Chapel regrets death, this third chapel to meditate would be the midpoint between life and death, the balance point, a journey into ourselves. We imagine a chapel buried, a lump in the ground. And in this process we include a vital element in our lives: water.

By including a water mirror at ground level, from the house we only appreciate like an "intervention in the landscape" a small stream in the garden. But when you get closer you can see a downwards ramp that surrounds the chapel. After the tour the chapel receives you with a beautiful glass entrance, then you get in to the central space. An oculus in the metal plate that allows us to see the outside through the water . A metal source with a large quartz in the center reflects the oculus on the floor.

Area: 170m2