Wooden Chapel

A British architect created a shelter for quiet contemplation on a wooded bike trail in Bavaria.

How did you get involved in this project?
John Pawson: We did the Catholic parish church in Augsburg in Bavaria, which is not a million miles from the woods where this chapel is. And I don’t quite know how they got together, but the priest had some connections in the area with a man and his wife who have a wood-processing business, and he had an idea to build seven places of sanctuary, all spaced apart, on a very beautiful cycle path through the state-owned woods. They invited six German architects and us, mainly because we’d done the church in Augsburg.

How was your site selected?
I was quite keen to see which site they were going to offer me, because there were seven. I chose a spot at the top of a clearing, half in the woods and half out. It’s very near the village on the Danube where the Battle of Blenheim was. It was the most horrific battle in history up until that point in terms of loss of life, quite appalling, but it’s a very beautiful spot and it just seemed to touch something—the history is there.

What drove the design of the form of the chapel?
I thought it should be an attenuated space—slightly exaggerated—so when you entered it, it would feel tall because it was narrow and long. And I didn’t want any cut logs for that length. Twelve meters is what you can get in an articulated truck, so the trunks were cut to suit the transport and then erected as an object. One of the things that is pleasant when you come out of the woods, on a bicycle or whatever, is that you arrive at the top of the clearing and you look down to the bottom of the valley, where there is a church spire. I wanted to orient the one window in the chapel so you could sit on the bench and actually see that spire. So, it was a one-chapel-to-another kind of thing. The shorter ends are also solid and they are just the depth that we needed structurally—about 2 feet thick. We did minimum cutting. Everything is solid and looks as if, from the outside, you’re looking at a solid block. The person who hasn’t been concentrating sees the end before anything else, and they don’t realize there is an interior. They think it’s just the forest, and someone’s just piled logs up.

How was it constructed?
We were put in touch with one of the client’s customers in the wood-crafting business and they took this on as a favor. They cut and assembled it in one of their factories in total, and then dismounted it and took it to the site. So, they kind of knew it was going to work. They had to form the concrete plinth, which is standard building, and then the bottom planks. And then they built it. There’s a series of pinnings through the center, which are not visible. It’s a secure, solid kit.

Tell me about the design of the interior.
It’s naturally dark until your eyes get used to it. There’s always this idea of the framed view, and of course the cross is quite strong, which is interesting considering I was of two minds about putting one in—because of not wanting an overtly Christian service. But it gave such a nice focus that I’m happy with it. The clerestory is sometimes bright and sometimes dark: I think it’s a bit brighter in the pictures, actually. But once your eyes get accustomed, you do see all the cut sides of those logs. So, on the inside space, you can see the saw marks and also see the markings and existing things on the logs—and it’s quite extraordinary. There’s a lot of handcraftsmanship.

Is there actually glass or some type of resin in the cross, unlike the open, unglazed window?
I would have liked amber, but it was prohibitively expensive. It’s colored glass, which is fairly rough and has air bubbles in it. From a distance—you can’t get too close to it because it’s high—it works rather well and it looks like it is amber anyway.

What type of logs were used?
They’re Douglas fir—a beautiful wood. It’s not particularly hard, but it’s very durable and you get very long, straight trunks. Dinesen [a Danish wood-flooring company] sourced them in Germany and took them back to Denmark to dry and cut them for me. They’ve done all of my special wood details since I started working in architecture—we’ve had a very nice relationship. The link between what we do and what they do is very interesting, because they’re very physical. You choose the tree and they cut it down for you—it’s all very lumberjack stuff. And I’m in the studio with a pencil, that’s as near as I get. So we’re strange bedfellows, which architects need.

How are people reacting to the project?
It’s getting a lot of people. You know, we sowed the grass around the construction site, but with people trampling it, we’re going to have to do something different in the summer. It’s very popular. Well, I think it is anyway. It seems to have hit a nerve, which is a good thing. It’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, it isn’t really a building, it’s an object that you can go inside. But it has a purpose and a good feeling about it—the ideas come together. There aren’t guarantees that you’re going to pull that off with a project—it’s always slightly nerve wracking.

Project Credits
Project: Wooden Chapel, Unterliezheim, Germany
Client: Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
Architect: John Pawson, London . John Pawson (principal); Jan Hobel, Eleni Koryzi (project architects)
Graphics: Max Gleeson
Timber Sponsor: Dinesen
Structural Engineer: Gumpp & Maier
Construction Manager/General Contractor: Gumpp & Maier
Glass: Franz Mayer of Munich
Size: 30 square meters (323 square feet)
Cost: Withheld