Architect 2014-07.pdf

112
ARCHITECT THE AIA MAGAZINE JULY 2014 WWW.ARCHITECTMAGAZINE.COM
BACK
PRODUCTS
CITATION
1954 P/A Awards Jury
Victor Gruen
George Howe
Eero Saarinen
Fred N. Severud
PAST PROGRESSIVES
RISING FROM THE ROCKS
THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY CROSS, SPECTACULARLY SET ON A CLIFF ABOVE
SEDONA, ARIZ., EXEMPLIFIES THE MELDING OF STRUCTURE AND SITE.
Text by John Morris Dixon, FAIA
THE JURORS FOR the very first P/A Awards program
shared a 1950s era urge to move past the International
Style’s universally applicable design
concepts toward an architecture more closely
related to place. They praised the Chapel of the
Holy Cross as “more location than architecture,
which is as it should be.” And they endorsed
the use of the “symbolic cross” as an “important
structural element,” which could have seemed a
coarse gesture in a less-sensitive design.
The chapel’s site is undeniably unique. And
its program was hardly ordinary, the product of
a decades-long effort by the donor, Marguerite
Brunswig Staude, to create a Roman Catholic
devotional chapel. After considering sites in
California and Hungary, she spotted this desert
setting during a flight over the Sedona, Ariz.,
area. Her chosen designer for such a project had
been Lloyd Wright—son of Frank Lloyd Wright
and architect of the 1951 Wayfarers Chapel in
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. When he declined,
she turned to Anshen + Allen of San Francisco
(acquired by Stantec in 2010), which clearly rose
to the challenge.
Completed in 1957, the chapel remains unaltered
and has required only routine maintenance.
Rising from a cleft between two mounds
of red rock, it continues to attract a steady
stream of the faithful, as well as admiring tourists.
From its austere interior, an expanse of the
area’s awe-inspiring landscape can be seen beyond
the commanding cross. While the building
represents the aspirations of its time, it is, in a
larger sense, timeless.
CAROL M. HIGHSMITH