Santa Monica Chapel Dossier

I. GENERAL INFORMATION
Project Name:Santa Monica Chapel

Alternative Name: Templo de Santa Monica

Architect(s): Félix Candela

Location: Mexico

Address: Fresas 126, Tlacoquemecatl del Valle, 03200 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico

Building Type: Chapel
Design/Construction Dates: Design:1960, Construction= 1960-1963

Completion Date: 1963
Client(s):
Size: Total=
Budget/Construction Cost:

Collaborators: Fernando Lopez Carmona

II. BACKGROUND/ BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT:

Santa Monica Chapel is a Catholic church which was designed by Felix Candela and located in Mexico city. Most of his buildings were constructed on spacious plots displaying the surrounding countryside. That being said, the site of Santa Monica Church is an L-shaped property with dense urban context on its two faces. The challenge of Santa Monica Church is to balance the traditional grandeur of sacred Catholic buildings against the interior density of urban-planning developments. This building is representative of H.P(horizontal parallax) theory which is a main element in Candela’s architectural structures. The majority of buildings which Candela designed featured thin concrete shells using hyperbolic geometry. An important feature of the Hyperbolic paraboloid is consisting of two lines which make it possible to use vertical wood to build the framework. The advantages of this technique is a reduction of construction cost and a strong sense of verticality. Santa Monica Church is not only a new religious symbol connecting social activity with living environment, but also an experiment for a new expression of construction. (LYZ)

Candela’s predisposition towards concrete shell structures is evident within the Santa Monica Chapel. Visually reminiscent of works by such contemporaries as Heinz Isler and Frei Otto, Candela’s chapel in Mexico City fans out from the centre of a semicircular core. The structure, which sits within a residential neighborhood dwarfed by standard rectilinear concrete towers, recalls a similar flare to that of European cathedrals. Immense stained-glass windows fill the spaces in between the fanning segments of the chapel’s hypars and glazing runs along their connecting joints so that the interior is inundated with a bath of natural light. This, along with the smooth white vaulted ceilings of the radiating chapel, emphasises both the program’s religious atmosphere, and the structure’s elegant lightness.

The vaulted ceiling not only serves as an act of grandeur, but also serves to accommodate a high volume of visitors. By removing the need for columns, there are no obstructed views and the interior gains programmatic space that would have otherwise been used for structural support. Overall, Candela has used thin concrete shell architecture to both emphasise atmosphere and efficiently meet the programmatic needs of the Santa Monica Chapel. (AL)

III. INTENTIONS OF THE ARCHITECT

The immigration to Mexico and the interests of hyperbolic paraboloid are essential elements for his design. The inspiration of designing Santa Monica chapel came from three reasons. First, Candela is not only an architect, but he is also a structural builder. He intended to make a transformation from architecture to structural art. Because the choice of form in architecture is impossible to entirely for aesthetic purposes, the generation of form is connected with the structure inextricably.Many engineers liked the non-topped surfaces of hyperbolic paraboloids, but rarely saw in their works. The reason is that although the stress of hyperbolic parabolic is reasonable, but the construction is difficult. Additionally, the application of hyperbolic paraboloid is a most important theory in the most of his works.

Linear wood is used through a specific laying method to build the hyperbolic paraboloid shape. Laying steel bars and pouring a thin layer of concrete require a lot of experienced workers.T he design of the Santa Monica Chapel was started from an asymmetrical umbrella. The short side of the umbrella was tilted to the ground and then raising the midpoint of the short side to form a triangular window hole. A total of eight units can form the main space of the chapel. Candela and his colleagues successively produced 21 comparative models in order to demonstrate the validity of the structure. In the concept of interior design, Candela utilized hyperbolic paraboloids to not only emphasize the sense of but also ensuring that all of upward lines can create a sense of ascension.

The Santa Monica Chapel shows the manipulation of architectural construction and form, it also indicated his proficient application of the saddle-shape pf hyperbolic parabolic.(LYZ)

IV. DRAWINGS
Site plan:

Building plans:

Sections:

Elevations:

Renderings (axonometric and/or perspectives):

Other (sketches, details, models, etc.):

*V. PHOTOGRAPHS*
Exterior:

Interior:


VI. CONSTRUCTION
Construction system(s):

Materials used
a) exterior:

b) interior:

Environmental Systems:

VII. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE/ INNOVATIONS INTRODUCED:
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VIII. ANALYTIC DIAGRAMS
Parti diagram:

Program diagram:

Structure diagram:

Tectonics diagram:

Ornament diagram:

Site/Context diagram:

IX. ANNOTATED REFERENCES

Books: <2 minimum per student, initial after entry>

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Articles: <2 minimum per student, initial after entry>

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Websites: <2 minimum per student for sites directly *related to the building * e.g. vidoes, discussions, etc.>

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X. LINKS

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