Detail of the project ed. 2016

capil­la-de-la-piedra / Nóme­na Arquitectura

Design­er	Hec­tor Loli Rizo Patrón
Loca­tion	Cieneguil­la, Lima, Perú
Design Team	Nóme­na Arqui­tec­tura + Xime­na Álvarez
Year	2010
Pho­to credits	PHO­TOG­RA­PH­ER ( ALL PHO­TOS ) : JUAN SOLANO

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The de la Piedra Chapel is locat­ed at the mar­gin of the Lurín riv­er and beside the Lomas de Castil­la hill, in the dis­trict of Cieneguil­la, east of the city of Lima.
The area is char­ac­ter­ized for a nat­ur­al con­text of desert veg­e­ta­tion, in con­tact with the foothills of the Andes moun­tain chain.
The com­mis­sion was to design, with­in a rur­al lot, a pri­vate chapel for a cou­ple who val­ues solitude.
This con­tin­u­ous spi­ral cre­ates an enclo­sure with­in the vast­ness of the plot, and by means of reflec­tion and sur­prise, val­ues the tran­si­tion from the “pro­fane” of every­day life to a pro­found­ly “sacred” space where ver­ti­cal­i­ty is the means to approach the divine.
Its orthog­o­nal geom­e­try allows to dif­fer­en­ti­ate stages through­out the pil­grim­age. The first approx­i­ma­tion takes place in con­tact with nature, accom­pa­ny­ing the riv­er and van­ish­ing the visu­al towards the valley.
Fur­ther ahead, the water appears as a puri­fy­ing ele­ment, whilst allow­ing the con­fronta­tion with one’s self.
The patio pro­vides the nec­es­sary pause for reflec­tion. An enclo­sure is cre­at­ed which com­pletes the sur­round­ings: the height of the visu­al deter­mines a new hori­zon, gath­er­ing nature (exte­ri­or) and archi­tec­ture (inte­ri­or) on a same plane.
The ver­ti­cal­i­ty of the inte­ri­or attempts to approach the divine, under­lined by a sky­light which is hid­den behind a sus­pend­ed plane. No typo­log­i­cal or sym­bol­ic ref­er­ences which man­i­fest a reli­gious char­ac­ter are delib­er­ate­ly used. The mate­ri­als are aus­tere and ele­men­tal in order to dis­solve in the experience.
The project is solved as an abstract object, although the mul­ti­ple lec­ture under­lies in all of its com­po­nents. When dis­cov­er­ing the inte­ri­or, a cross is con­fig­ured on per­spec­tive between the ver­ti­cal of the open door and the hor­i­zon­tal of the exte­ri­or bench. The altar has a dual func­tion: on the inside for indi­vid­ual med­i­ta­tion and on the out­side for mass ceremonies.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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