Glasnevin Chapel

The design is centred on the theme of the “empty house”. The empty house is a powerful metaphor for loss within Ireland.

The chapel is organised simply as an empty room. It is a neutral pale space. A single oculus skylight in the vaulted roof allows a view of the sky and passing clouds. An embedded roof light prism diffracts the coloured daylight across the ceiling below.

The walls of the chapel are glass. The chapel becomes a covered agora which is visible to the graveyard’s community. Deep recesses create spaces for private condolences and greetings. The space is open to the surrounding community. It is not a place of pilgrimage but a place of assembly, so we have designed a chapel whose boundaries are that of the graveyard. It is part of the city of the dead.

The church is made from concrete, wood and glass. It is a stone sarcophagus with lined timber. The floors extend from the chapel. Broad stone steps place the 1916 Monument in a newly made context. Hedges and trees create orthogonal enclosures around the space allowing large formal spaces for gatherings to be created.

The car parking areas for the chapel are located to the rear of the church. Cemetery utility areas are screened at the very end of the graveyard.

The chapel is an everyman’s house within the graveyard. It is a place of simple ritual and goodbyes.