Detail of the project ed. 2020

TALLER ARCHI­TECTS – SAN CLAVER CHAPEL

Design­er	Pablo Forero
Loca­tion	San­tanderci­to, Colombia
Design Team	Pablo Forero Julian Restrepo Manuela Mosquera Valenti­na Sastoque Car­los Hernández Sebastián Castrillón Juan Cami­lo Salazar Bruna Britto William Maya Jaime Ruiz Jose Fer­nan­do Sierra Felix Muñoz
Year	2018
Pho­to credits	Pho­to 1 exte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 2 exte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 3 exte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 4 exte­ri­or: Diez veinte Estudio Pho­to 5 exte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 1 Inte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 2 Inte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 3 Inte­ri­or: TALLER Architects Pho­to 4 Inte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio Pho­to 5 Inte­ri­or: Diez Veinte Estudio

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

In the out­skirts of Bogotá, the Soci­ety of Jesus in Colom­bia have trans­formed a for­mer cof­fee farm into their own spir­i­tu­al retreat. In the mid­dle of the trop­i­cal estate lies a large house, a char­ac­ter­is­tic typol­o­gy found in the region. In the 90’s the house was retro­fit­ted to suit their require­ments: lodg­ing, meet­ing rooms and a small chapel; all with­in a sin­gle roof. As the retreat grew suc­cess­ful, the need to improve their facil­i­ties also grew. A new chapel was to be erect­ed to give room for more lodg­ings and prop­er meet­ing rooms with­in the house. 

The omnipres­ence of the house and its sym­me­try dic­tates a clear axis with­in the site, the cer­e­mo­ni­al axis. The Chapel, named after the Span­ish Jesuit priest and patron saint of slaves in Colom­bia, Peter Claver, is aligned with said axis and locat­ed in front of the main facade. 

The loca­tion of the chapel helps acti­vate the for­mer entry plaza and the steep topog­ra­phy con­cedes a priv­i­leged posi­tion with­in a lush green site, com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by trop­i­cal veg­e­ta­tion all year-round. 

When con­front­ed with this beau­ti­ful place, con­trary to tra­di­tion, we felt that as archi­tects, there was not much for us to do. Thus the main ges­ture for the chapel is a thresh­old, a con­crete por­tal that marks the tran­si­tion from pro­fane to sacred. With­in the sacred space, a lev­i­tat­ing floor and a shel­ter­ing roof will suf­fice. The glass enclo­sure allows the sur­round­ing nature inside. The cross, locat­ed out­side, rein­forces the sacral­i­ty of nature as god’s creation. 

While chapels and sacred spaces nec­es­sar­i­ly call for intro­spec­tion, Saint Claver Chapel also calls for an open and direct rela­tion­ship with nature. The chapel has no walls, there­fore empha­sis­ing the rela­tion­ship between us humans, and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. If soci­ety is to thrive, we must learn to live in har­mo­ny with god’s creation.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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