Family chapel in Bovec by Atelje Ostan Pavlin; Slovenia

For the purpose of a modern spiritual sanctuary we designed a small sacred place, shielded from the outside profane space, by three curved walls, responding to the micro-topography of the terrain. The “organic” structure on a sheep pasture opens towards the nearby mountains, leading a dynamic, changing dialogue with their contours. The house leaves three openings in three directions of the sky, reflecting the semantic trinity of the tripartite structure. Echoes of local tradition (the Bovec house) and less internationalist XX.th century architecture (De Klerk, Aalto, Scharoun …) locate it in the context of “critical regionalism”. The small building was executed as low budget project with local craftsmen slowly during last 10 years.

What makes this project one-of-a-kind?
A unique way in which this small structure, a primordial spiritual shelter, combines local anonymous (traditional) architecture, legacy of modernistic (organic) architecture and attunement to complex natural context, makes it a building with strong identity and statement (that doesn’t just flow with the trends, but tries to manifest a long term permanence…).

Text provided by the architects.