sotter hill house
broadway loft
bridge-studio
digital water i-pavilion
bruce pearson sculpture
project: Infinity Chapel
location: Greenwich Village, NY
client: Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist
size: 8,000 s.f.
date: construction to begin April 2006
cost: $ 2,600,000
The Infinity Chapel for the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist features a cubic sanctuary deformed by light. The new sanctuary is a place where the sacred geometries of squares, golden section rectangles, and ‘spheres of light’ will surround worshippers. Three curving walls - one from the south, one from the north and one from the east - suggest the large spheres. These forms evoke the shape of a ‘Klein bottle’ or moebius strip, simple figures that suggest infinity by having no beginning and no end.
In front of the sanctuary facing the street are the combined lobby and Christian Science Reading Room, designed as an open, relaxed space for study and conversation. Below this ground level are the Sunday school and boardroom with borrowed natural light entering from light monitors projecting through the first floor.
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Infinity Chapel : sanctuary view facing rear courtyard
sanctuary view looking down hall toward offices
left: view from mezzanine
 right: curved wall detail
view of Reading Room looking toward MacDougal Street
view through Reading Room to Sanctuary and rear courtyard
first floor plan
cellar floor plan
longitudinal section
rendering: view of chapel / sanctuary
chapel from back
Reading Room
Reading Room
view of private 'Reader's Rooms; glass topped table in foreground serves as 'light well into the basement Sunday School below
view from Reader's Room
early study model for 'light wells' - view of light filtering into basement
early study model for 'light wells'
Klein bottle - infinite shape
sketch diagram of inward-curving surfaces of Chapel inspired by the Infinity sign
curved walls: hypercube diagram
light monitor diagram
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