Detail of the project ed. 2020

SACH­ER + LOCI­CERO – CHAPEL MARIA MAGDALENA

Design­er	Ger­hard Sacher
Loca­tion	Baiers­dorf 6, A‑9300 St. Veit a.d. Glan, Austria
Design Team	Ger­hard Sacher
Year	2014
Pho­to credits	Paul Ott Sacher.Locicero.Architects

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

White Con­crete in Gold­en Ratio
The fam­i­ly chapel Maria Mag­dale­na by the archi­tect Ger­hard Sach­er is a spec­tac­u­lar sculp­tur­al object made of white con­crete ( SCC „self com­pact­ing con­crete“). The con­struc­ters have proved a great por­tion of heart, trust and deep under­stand­ing for archi­tec­ture in hav­ing cre­at­ed this project of an excep­tion­al, time­less spa­cious­ness, in which fam­i­ly cer­e­monies and fes­tiv­i­ties take place and where tran­quil­li­ty, con­tem­pla­tion and remem­ber­ing can be expe­ri­enced in a unique set­up. In a sight­ing dis­tance to the Mag­dalens­berg hill and the Hochoster­witz cas­tle, the piece of archi­tec­ture rep­re­sents a mod­ern land­mark as an expres­sive sym­bol of an art­less form language.
Location
You can´t pass the sculp­ture made of white con­crete (SCC) with­out being impressed. It stands there as an erect­ed fin­ger in the land­scape of gen­tle hill locks of Zollfeld, Carinthia, in the midst of a young vine­yard. The glow­ing white of the con­crete is so per­fect, the archi­tec­ture so har­mo­nious­ly unadorned, and the loca­tion is so spec­tac­u­lar in the land­scape preg­nant with his­to­ry – Zollfeld, the fer­tile plain with long cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal tra­di­tion, lies between the Mag­dalens­berg hill with its pil­grim­age church on top in the south­east, andthe Hochoster­witz cas­tle majes­ti­cal­ly sit­ting on a rock cone for over a thou­sand years, in the north. If you stroll by, you will fall for the radi­ant white of the mod­ern land­mark and for its sim­ple form lan­guage even if you are the most con­vinced agnostic.
Descrip­tion of the project
The vis­i­tor approach­es the spa­cious, round, slight­ly descend­ing grav­el fore­court via gen­tly slop­ing access ramp. In the fore­court, there is the build­ing from white con­crete and glass incised in it, and the base ele­ments inter­pret the form of a clas­si­cal chapel in a con­tem­po­rary way. The immac­u­late, smooth­ly formed white con­crete pro­vides this piece of archi­tec­ture with a spe­cial, arti­­fi­­cial-like aes­thet­ics and puri­ty. Var­i­ous light and weath­er con­di­tions change the colour and sur­face impres­sions from a glow­ing, glossy white to a cold, matt white blue of the dawn, through which there are innu­mer­able shad­ings and tex­tures to be observed.
The ridge of the gable roof is 7,78 meters high. In the side walls, there are trans­verse­ly cut-it win­dow slots, three on each side. The trans­ver­sal cut­tings of the win­dows are posi­tioned in line with the sun rays inci­dence, so that the morn­ing and/or evening sun­shine hits the coloured vit­ri­fi­ca­tion made by prof. Karl-Heinz Simonitsch, a Carinthi­an artist. The win­dows are made of mul­ti-colour glass lay­ers and depict the six days of the gen­e­sis. The east-side front with full-size glaz­ing and the out­side bronze cross by Jaromir­Gar­gu­lak, a Czech artist, rep­re­sents the last day of the gen­e­sis. The oppo­site, towards the fore­court sit­u­at­ed, mas­sive, bronze, two-wing gate is hand­made by the same Czech artist and can be wide opened inte­grat­ing the fore­court, und thus offer room for those stand­ing outside
The mas­sive, white side walls inside shield the abun­dance of the sur­round­ing cul­tur­al land­scape and cre­ates a bright, con­tem­pla­tive space radi­at­ing peace and puri­ty. The ful­ly glazed east-side offers the sight of the dark bronze cross against the Mag­dalens­berg on the hori­zon build­ing the spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to the out­side. The inte­ri­or is delib­er­ate­ly sim­ple and vari­able at the same time. The for­ma­tive ele­ment of the space is the floor made of cream and beige traver­tine tiles. Just a sin­gle step in the rec­tan­gu­lar lay­out of the chapel marks the tran­si­tion from the chapel nave to its choir. The walls along the choir include rec­tan­gu­lar nich­es – on the right, there is a larg­er slot with the stat­ue of Maria Mag­dale­na, the patron saint of the chapel, and on the left, there are 12 small­er urn slots. On the left, in between the coloured win­dows, there are insus­cep­ti­ble fold-out banks made of white washed oak that are flush mount in the con­crete wall.
Light and the four seasons
A town chapel has to exclude the out­side world to attain tran­quil­li­ty. There­fore, in most of the cas­es, the chapel walls have only a few open­ings. A chapel sit­u­at­ed in the open coun­try­side already has the tran­quil­li­ty per se, and there­fore can be opened towards the out­side and prof­it from the inter­play with the nature.
The trans­par­ent glaz­ing (12mmESG — max­i­mum size on the east side — 6,20m x 1,65m)of the flank wall pro­vides for a lot of nat­ur­al light com­ing in and allows the inclu­sion of var­i­ous sea­son­al light and weath­er dis­po­si­tions. The sun­light com­ing in through the coloured win­dow slots, three at the north and three at the south, floods the inte­ri­or with var­ied colour plays. For addi­tion­al illu­mi­na­tion of the space, the translu­cent cylin­ders hang­ing down from the ridge can be used, where­as the fit­ted spot lights in the nich­es along the choir pro­vide focused lighting.
At dawn and at night, the dif­fused light comes out of the chapel and falls on the fore­court and the close sur­round­ings. Sole­ly the cross in the chapel gar­den enjoys a direct high­light­ed illu­mi­na­tion and thus becomes a part of the interior.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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