A non-denominational chapel for a diverse community
Chapel paragraaf 1 In February 2009, the new building was completed for the Delfshaven Nursing Home, located in a multicultural community in the city of Rotterdam. The ground floor houses several facilities that are not only open to clients of the nursing home, but also to visitors and neighborhood residents. One of these facilities is a non-denominational chapel and meditative space designed by artist Ingeborg Meulendijks. The Dutch Foundation for Art in Public Spaces (SKOR) proposed Meulendijks be the designer for the project on the strength of her earlier work. Since 1997, she has been working on her "secret house", an art project that consists of sculptural models and photos of the modeled spaces. By playing with scale and perspective, she explores how we experience a space on an emotional level. Constructing a space is for her primarily about building somewhere you would really like to be. |
Chapel paragraaf 2 Photo: Portrait of the artist in scale model "There is little place for reflection in our society, so what I had in mind was to literally and figuratively make room for quiet contemplation here, in the middle of a busy nursing home in multicultural Delfshaven." Meulendijks decided not to place a work of art in the space, but to make the space itself into a work of art. The goal was to create a place that excludes no one due to religious affiliation or physical challenges. First, she constructed a detailed model to adapt the existing space to these purposes. She altered the structure and layout and employed motifs from religious architecture to create a visually subdued, serene experience for visitors. Her choice to use circle and dome patterns, as universal spiritual symbols, places the emphasis not on our differences but on the shared human experience of an inner life. All the same, Meulendijks designed mobile furniture and liturgical objects to allow different religious groups to temporarily tailor the chapel to their specific needs. In addition to traditional craftsmanship and handwork, the artist and her team also made use of anachronistic details in the chapel – not in an attempt to resurrect the past, but rather to make all sense of time disappear. The result is a public space that gives visitors the seclusion they need to listen to the silence.  |