Det­ta­glio del pro­get­to ed. 2020

TSZ­WAI SO – BELA­RU­SIAN MEMO­RIAL CHAPEL

Desi­gner Tsz­wai So
Loca­tion Hol­den Ave­nue, N12 8HY Lon­don, UK
Desi­gn Team

Author/Architect/Designer: Tsz­wai So

Pro­ject Archi­tect: Samuel Ben­­til-Men­­sah (Sphe­ron Architects)

Anno 2017
Pho­to credits

Joa­kim Boren: Ex01, Ex02, Ex03, Ex04, In01, In03
Hele­ne Binet: In02, In04
Ioa­na Mari­ne­scu: In05
Mika­laj Pac­ka­jeu: Ex05

Foto ester­ni

Descri­zio­ne del progetto

The Bela­ru­sian Memo­rial Cha­pel is the fir­st woo­den church built in Lon­don sin­ce the Great Fire of 1666. Accom­mo­da­ting up to 40 peo­ple, the dimi­nu­ti­ve cha­pel com­mis­sio­ned by the Holy See was built for the Bela­ru­sian dia­spo­ra com­mu­ni­ty whom relo­ca­ted to the UK after WWII. They were once pre­do­mi­nan­tly Greek Catho­lics who were sub­se­quen­tly ban­ned by the Tsa­ri­st Regi­me in the 19th Cen­tu­ry. During WWII, Bela­rus lost 1/3 of her popu­la­tion —the lar­ge­st per­cen­ta­ge of any coun­try, and coun­tless woo­den chur­ches and syna­go­gues toge­ther with the wor­ship­pers were tor­ched by Nazi troops. The 1st gene­ra­tion of Bela­ru­sians in Bri­tain the­re­fo­re were still haun­ted by this memo­ry. The desi­gn of the new cha­pel reco­gni­ses the impor­tan­ce of fami­lia­ri­ty, com­fort and col­lec­ti­ve memo­ries within the com­mu­ni­ty, dra­wing inspi­ra­tion from architect’s fir­­st-hand recor­ding of chur­ches and testi­mo­nies from locals in rural Bela­rus, a coun­try once popu­la­ted by nume­rous woo­den struc­tu­res. Motifs asso­cia­ted with col­lec­ti­ve iden­ti­ty and memo­ries, such as the Baro­que cupo­la reap­pears as a sign of their Greek Catho­lic faith; as the histo­ric cupo­las were all repla­ced with Rus­sian Ortho­dox Onion domes in Bela­rus. This rein­ter­pre­ta­tion aims to trans­cend archi­tec­tu­ral ideo­lo­gies by mar­ry­ing a ver­na­cu­lar typo­lo­gy with con­tem­po­ra­ry detai­ling, exem­pli­fied by the undu­la­ting exte­rior fins, for­ming an unob­tru­si­ve yet dyna­mic faça­de. Insi­de the cle­re­sto­ry win­do­ws give the appea­ran­ce that the walls are floa­ting, ampli­fy­ing the spi­ri­tual pre­sen­ce of the buil­ding yet con­trasts its struc­tu­ral soli­di­ty. Natu­ral ven­ti­la­tion flo­ws via the bell tower and the rear, whi­le air-sou­r­­ced hea­ting hid­den under­neath the altar. The exten­si­ve use of cer­ti­fied off-site tim­ber con­struc­tion redu­ces the car­bon foot­print. At night, as the cha­pel glo­ws sof­tly, in prayer, the Bela­ru­sians are remin­ded of the trau­ma­tic tor­ching of their ance­stors insi­de the woo­den chur­ches during WWII.

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