General Hospital of Manila, Rooftop Chapel
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Not often is a design studio tasked with the design of a church, chapel or place of worship. Our team jumped at the opportunity, eyes and souls wide open.
The General Hospital of Manila is a city-owned and managed hospital, which serves the dense population of Manila. Under a 10-year long rehabilitation program, the creation of a room of worship on the newly-recoverd rooftop was first on the agenda. The very-faithful patrons has complained about the poor facilities where the previous chapel was located.
The hospital's board of directors set our studio forth with the challenge not without some careful directives:
- it should be absolutely inexpensive to build
- it should be easy to keep pristine
- it shoud be inexpensive to maintain
and the most important -and progressive of all, the reason that made us jump with excitement- it should be non-denominational. It must, however, cater to Catholics, that make up 90% of the hospital users but must make any and all other faiths feel welcome.
Not being the most-faithful of church-flockers, we set off on the challenge.
The details accomplished:
- a pure white space, in which cleaners will be able to spot the first spot of dirt, and hopefully address it immediately
- the pews from the original chapel, donated decades ago by the City's patrons are reused. The space is designed so that these fit in like a glove. The space follows that incredible heritage.
- punch throughs in the wall allow for light and ventilation and allude to the Cross without representing it directly. These same punch thrus are arranged in
13 columns, which to fervent Catholics is a direct link to the 13 stations of the cross. We were very proud of that one.
A very concerned Doctor came up to me during the opening of the chapel and pointed out that the cross at the altar -a punch thru a dry wall- was empty. I asked her to look again, because it was not empty: it was full of light.
Thanks go to Frankie Callaghan for the wonderful photography.
