Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Context: A. Main Chapel B. Sunday School C. Minister Home
Context: A. Main Chapel B. Sunday School C. Minister Home
The Church of Light, is located in a small town of Iberaki, which is right outside
the sprawling metropolis of Osaka, Japan. The designing began in January of
1987 and the finished design work was completed in May of 1988.
Though in a small neighborhood outside of Osaka, it is a prime example
of a piece of outstanding architecture tightly knit into the urban fabric.
Materials
The cold reinforced concrete blocks compliments
with the warmth of wood and the penetrating light
bringing about an experience of solace and hope.
While the space is primarily defined by the
concrete volume, wood is used for all of the elements that one engages such
as the seating and the floor.
Furniture
The furniture and the severity of the grim ambient that houses it, combined
with the lively and ever-changing performance of light and shadow,
manage
to provide stress and intensity along with purity and tranquility, which is in
itself the essence of the spirituality that this space conveys.
Access and Entry
The access to the compound was made intentionally indirect . Visitors are forced to enter the
complex at the northeast corner through a side street via a forecourt that leads to a corner of
the church near the minister's house, arriving to an area located in the back of the church.
From there one enters to a tiny little square, which houses a circular bench. Through This
space organizes the accesses to the main church and adjacent chapel.
Once inside the chapel, you emerge from a very small, cramped even, entry into an open
space, which is the sanctuary. Here the floor slopes down to the main alter which is at the
foot of a large cutout cross-punctured into the concrete wall. The church of light pays
immense focus on how the entry is acknowledged as a part of the larger whole of the design.
Connectivity between the exterior Here one enters off the main part of the site into this small side entrance delineated by
and interior a diagonal concrete wall cut at a 15-degree angle. The concept here is that one
relieves the stresses of the outside world and emerges into the sacred interior.
The wall is the commanding element that
is easily recognized in the exterior and Thus when one enters the chapel, which does not offer any air conditioning
the interior of the structure. even in winter, the caverneous space of coldness is pre reflectively drawn
to the warmth and brightness of the crucifix at the end of the linear axis.
Volumetric Composition