The Chapel Museum was built to restore spiritual function and significance to two 13th century Byzantine frescoes, a dome and an aspe, rescued and restored by the client.
With a quiet, contemporary technological voice, this project's strength is in its ability to present the fresco fragments within an implied presence of Byzantine space. The luminance of natural light on concrete and electric light on glass combine to create a powerful place that replenishes the soul. Monastically simple, imaginative, and serene, this is a place of quietude that lifts the spirit.
The ancient works are transposed to the contemporary site by means of a mediating external building with an embedded structure – a reliquary box. The form of a reliquary box derives from the tradition of housing sacred fragments in small casket-like cases, sometimes one within another.
The sense of beyond is evoked through the play of darkness and light. The light at the center is surrounded by darkness which itself is again surrounded by light.
