Portfolio: Sacred Heart Chapel

Sacred Heart Chapel is designed for a new Catholic high school outside of Minneapolis and is intended to inspire students to prayer and good works. The chapel is circular, with diffused light streaming down from a dome. The altar bears a mosaic of the sacred heart of Jesus, and is set in a raised sanctuary. Two side chapels, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and to St. Joseph are on the cross axis and provide a place for prayerful devotion. Ionic pilasters support the entablature on which in inscribed a passage appropriate to high school students from St. Paul's letter to Timothy: "Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." Sculptures and mosaics throughout the chapel depict moments in the New Testament.

The chapel will be built of wood and plaster, with marble floors, mosaics, and a stone altar. Since this is an insertion into an existing building, special care was taken to integrate the geometry and the design of the new chapel within the existing structure. This chapel creates a sacred space at the entrance to the high school and will serve as a place of daily mass, private prayer and eucharistic adoration.