The Chapel of the Valley is an ecumenical chapel located at the bottom of a small valley in Shandong, China. The project takes advantage of the terrain’s natural ruggedness. Accentuating the depth of the crevices by approximately 20 metres, the chapel seems to surge from the ground.
The building rises to a height of 45 metres with a width of 1.3 metres at its narrowest part. The chapel consists of two closely spaced reinforced concrete curving walls, varying from 22 to 180 centimetres in thickness. The walls, which run alongside each other to form a narrow entrance, gradually move further apart and then merge to enclose the altar space. Because the space gets wider as one advances through the building, the entrance is plunged into darkness while the altar receives sunlight.
This spatial sequence creates the impression of light coming from the depth of the building. The new chapel space is created as a continuation of the valley’s particular proportions, though its monumental scale radically exceeds that of the existing landscape. A new valley is created, open to the wind and rain.
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