Chapel of the Risen Christ

Architect: Design Alliance Architects
Landscape Architect: SWT Design
General Contractor: BSI Constructors
Structural Engineer: Larson Engineering
MEP Engineer: Solutions AEC
Liturgical Design: Studio Totus
Stained Glass: Emil Frei & Associates
Lighting Design: Reed Burkett Lighting Design
Location: St. Louis, MO

A neo-brutalist chapel as reliquary for a defunct parish. Built for Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, it breaks with the revivalist mode that dominates recent American Catholic building, taking its cue instead from Cardinal Ritter's mid-century building program. Like sheets of paper, eight curved concrete walls as high as 50 feet wrap around the core. Simultaneously structural and symbolic, the walls fragment toward the nave while a round skylight directs ambient light inside to the altar. In this contemporary context sit some salvaged pieces of Saints Mary and Joseph in Carondelet. Three McShane bells cast in 1876 and a 1941 Wicks organ, are rehoused here. The break from traditional style turns out, on a closer look, to be an act of preservation.