Detail of the project ed. 2024

bosjes / Unit­ed Kingdom

Design­er Coet­zee Steyn
Loca­tion R43, Wolse­ley, West­ern Cape
Nation South Africa
Design Team

Steyn Stu­dio — Design Archi­tect (UK)
TV3 Archi­tects — Local Exec­u­tive Archi­tects (South Africa)
Year 2016
Pho­to credits

BosjesChapelView1,2,3 & 5 = Adam Letch
BoshesChapelInteriorViews1,2,3,4,5 — Adam Letch
BosjesChapelView4 = Dook

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Con­trary to most tra­di­tion­al church­es; the open­ness of the Bosjes Chapel cre­ates a strong con­nec­tion with nature. Here the stained-glass win­dows of old are replaced by the tapes­try of God’s cre­ation. The dis­tant views are jux­ta­posed by the inti­ma­cy felt inside the chapel; cre­at­ing a space of reflec­tion. God is near­by. Want­i­ng to cre­ate a sense of awe and invis­i­ble pow­er, the roof was ini­tial­ly con­ceived as a lev­i­tat­ing con­crete slab, and was even­tu­al­ly shaped poet­i­cal­ly into its icon­ic form by grav­i­ty, Cape Dutch archi­tec­tur­al influ­ences, and a small note from the client with Psalm 36:7 writ­ten on it.

The val­ley in which Bosjes is locat­ed, is sur­round­ed by grand and majes­tic moun­tains. Typ­i­cal­ly the baroque gables of tra­di­tion­al Cape Dutch manor hous­es , as is found on Bosjes, sets up visu­al dia­logue with these moun­tains. The Bosjes chapel reflects a sim­i­lar rela­tion­ship with the moun­tains. Its pro­file, archi­tec­tur­al form and mass­ing responds sculp­tural­ly to the moun­tain backdrop.

Sim­i­lar­ly the text of Psalm 36:7 is also con­sid­ered as an impor­tant poet­ic infor­ma­tive and its inter­pre­ta­tion, archi­tec­tural­ly, as a struc­ture which ‘floats/glides’ effort­less­ly, and has motion yet sta­t­ic. The sculp­tur­al form emu­lates the sur­round­ing moun­tains as well as the poet­ic motion of flight sought. 

The form is fur­ther refined by means of the inter­pre­ta­tion of the baroque ‘holbol’(/ˈhÉ”lbÉ”l/) gable, found on the Bosjes manor house. The main char­ac­ter­is­tic of a ‘hol­bol’ (/ˈhÉ”lbÉ”l/) gable is that of the com­bi­na­tion of out­ward in inward cur­va­tures which results in a series of visu­al ‘peaks’ and ‘val­leys’ with­in the chapel roof.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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