The Architecture Trip--The praying hands--Luce Chapel

The Luce Chapel

The shape of it is claimed to be praying hands

  The architecture for this week the Luce Chapel(路思義教堂), located in Tunghai University(東海大學) in Taichung. Like the architects mentioned before, the architect who designed it is very famous--he is Ieoh Ming Pei(貝聿ㄩˋ銘). He got the Nobel prize in architecture, Pritzker Architecture Prize(普立茲克建築獎), as the two Japanese architects did.

The smiley architect, Ieoh Ming Pei, is a Chinese-American

The pyramid in front of the the Louvre museum(羅浮宮) is his representative work

  What make the Chapel so special? It is the walls, well, they are not only walls but also a roof. The four curved walls are the main structure of the architecture.

Only made up of four curved walls

It is just like a tent

I used to want to climb the wall when I was a kid because of this program

  Look from the inside of the chapel, we can see the walls are covered by block-shaped beams(格子樑), that are supporting the walls.

the block-shaped beams

The block shape is like the pineapple's

  Another texture of the architecture is the skylight. It is a straight line on the top, or to say, it cut the curved wall into two pieces.

The skylight represents the blessing of God

Like the view of  the narrow sky(一線天)

  The usages of the chapel are very variable, not only for worships.

It can be projected

Can be used to hold weddings

Can take photos like this at night

The lawn around the chapel is a suitable place to do activities, I used to play baseball here