Detail of the project ed. 2024

the-chapel-of-the-last-farewell / Poland

Design­er	Jakub Tur­basa & Bartłomiej Pyrzyk
Loca­tion	Fran­ciszkan­s­ka Street, Rych­wałd (near Żywiec), Poland
Nation	Poland
Design Team	Archi­tects: Jakub Tur­basa & Bartłomiej Pyrzyk
Year	2021
Pho­to credits	Jakub Tur­basa & Bartłomiej Pyrzyk

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The project was car­ried out in close prox­im­i­ty to the baroque com­plex with the minor basil­i­ca of St. Nicholas. The sim­plic­i­ty of archi­tec­ture derives from the arche­typ­al, tra­di­tion­al forms, con­sti­tut­ing their con­tem­po­rary reinterpretation. 

The block con­sists of two parts that ade­quate­ly express the func­tion relat­ed to the spaces of sacrum and pro­fanum. The first one refers to the place of prayer — the chapel. The sec­ond one, cov­ered with green­ery — encom­pass­ing the accom­pa­ny­ing rooms.

The project com­bines two tra­di­tions of con­struct­ing Chris­t­ian sacral build­ings: the “con­cept of way” (mov­ing in stages from the world of the pro­fanum towards the place of the sacrum; and the “con­cept of place” (cen­tral lay­out of gath­er­ing togeth­er in prayer). The design con­cept echoes the mem­o­ry of the so-called “Paschal path” — i.e. the last moments of Christ’s life — from the Pas­sion, through death, to res­ur­rec­tion, which was sym­bol­i­cal­ly expressed in architecture.

Stage 1 – Pas­sion. After cross­ing the thresh­old of the chapel, a per­son finds them­selves in a vestibule filled with dark­ness. Rein­forced con­crete walls and the ceil­ing are black, which aims to empha­size the impres­sion of immen­si­ty, infin­i­ty and “imma­te­ri­al­i­ty” of a place where all con­tours are lost.

2 – Death. At the end of the chapel’s per­spec­tive and also at eye lev­el, you can see a fil­i­gree cross that express­es the next stage — i.e. death.

3 – Res­ur­rec­tion. Through the zone of dark­ness, we enter the actu­al zone of prayer. This bright space sym­bol­izes the hope of the Chris­t­ian voca­tion (accord­ing to the Chris­t­ian faith, life does not end with death). In the place where peo­ple gath­er around the body of the deceased, their atten­tion is not focused on the real­i­ty of death (i.e. the cross and the deceased per­son), but is direct­ed towards the per­spec­tive of eter­nal life. The archi­tec­ture of the inte­ri­or nat­u­ral­ly guides the gaze upwards and towards the light. The icons by Gre­ta Leśko present a lit­tle taste of this reality.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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