The newly constructed St Peter’s College chapel in Auckland won an award in the public architecture category at the 2020 New Zealand Architecture Awards.
Representatives of St Peter’s College and Stevens Lawson Architects Ltd receive the NZIA award. (Photo: David St George)
The chapel was designed by Stevens Lawson Architects Ltd. It was blessed and dedicated by college chaplain Msgr Paul Farmer on March 13, 2020.
The judges commented that the “chapel for a boys’ high school provides a spiritual moment of refreshing lightness and softness”.
“Guests are welcomed in, and then experience a spatial compression at the point of entry. Once you are inside the main assembly space, the architecture slowly reveals itself. A sharp overhead skylight leads your eye to the altar and the inverted cross of light, referencing St Peter’s upside-down crucifixion,” they said.
The judges noted that light and materials were “used with utmost skill and restraint to dramatically highlight the smaller reconciliation spaces and the altar in contrast to the gentleness of the general lighting”.
They said the surfaces seem to bend and move light around the space.
“The Chapel of Saint Peter achieves a remarkable spiritual sense through simple and subtle moves that impart maximum effect and meaning,” they said.
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