Jun Aoki's Eternity Wedding Chapel

I recently featured a small, modern and unusual chapel in Mexico and here's yet another lovely example of minimalist architecture for a holy house. Slightly larger than the Chapel of La Estancia (this one has seating), but is almost as minimalist and modern. This one is actually a part of the Hyatt Regency Inn Wedding Collection in Osaka. It is named the Eternity Chapel.



Michael Webb writes about it in this excerpt from The Architectural Review:
From the hotel lobby it resembles a gleaming, sharp-prowed yacht, moored in the water garden and about to sail away. Delicate steel columns support an angled canopy high above the entrance, and a bridge plays the role of gangplank. Screen walls of 1500 interlocking steel rings diffuse light (much like the mesh facades of Aoki's stores), and shut out the intimidating mass of the high-rise hotel. Low-set expanses of clear glass frame greenery. The architect calls his creation the White Chapel, but Hyatt have christened the hexagonal space Eternity--an optimistic prediction for the unions it consummates--and the gauzy white interior with its floor of marble tesserae does suggest a movie set for the after-life. The cross is an optional prop, along with a heavenly choir, but Aoki has achieved an ideal balance of Zen purity and Western spirituality. Dramatic by day, it appears even more ethereal by night, its shimmering image mirrored in the dark water.

In the existing site of Hyatt Regency Osaka, the new wedding chapel was completed in April of 2006. As described by the architect, Jun Aoki, "A truncated regular tetrahedron is unique geometrical feature. It can fill up space without interspaces. 4 circles inscribed in regular octagonal planes become a unit of rings connected at points. The units of rings load the chapel as a part of main structure. This is the initial work using this system after we created."


Above: Architect Jun Aoki, who also designed the Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo

Sounds awfully mathematical, no?
Who cares, just look at it:






Just may be worth a trip to japan to get married.

A House Of (and to) Worship: The Chapel of La Estancia

Personally, I'm more of a believer in the culture of religion rather than the dogma, but, if you do want to get married in an actual house of worship, this is one of the more modern, private and architecturally unusual settings.

The small Chapel of La Estancia by Bunker Arquitectura.

Since Bunker Arquitctura's site is under construction and I couldn't get more info on this chapel, the article below is courtesy of Wallpaper magazine and the accompanying photos were shot by Meg Inniss and one of the architect's brothers and graphic designer, Sebastian Suárez.






About it
The owners of the colonial-era gardens in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, had built up a business offering wedding packages to young couples, and originally wanted an ersatz colonial-style chapel structure in which to host the ceremonies.

Happily, Bunker persuaded them otherwise, and set to work devising a modern, functional yet undeniably romantic setting for the events. Initial plans for a glass-walled building were opposed by the client, who claimed - quite reasonably - that it would heat up throughout the day and make ceremonies sweaty and unbearable. But Bunker stuck to their guns, explaining that their solution involved a latticework of opaque glass beams, arranged vertically and set apart from one another to create a 'veil' running around the entire structure that allows air to move freely. Above this sits a solid roof, its shape devised by the shearing, pinching and shifting of the original box-shaped volume, forming a simple yet elegant shallow pitch.

The end wall contains a cross set into the glass fins, while the floor is a humble white concrete slab (toned down from the original marble due to budget considerations). The structure replaces the canvas tent that used to be used for the ceremonies, yet retains an alluring air of impermanence and lightness.

Architects Esteban Suarez and Jorge Arteaga and graphic designer Sebastian Suarez, Esteban's brother, started Bunker Arquitectura in 2004 after finishing their studies in Mexico City. Named for their studio - a former bunker - they're currently working on a new residence in Mexico City and the urban planning for the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara.