If President Larry Arnn gets his wish, in less than three years Hillsdale’s new 27,000 square foot chapel will complete the Quad.
The college must raise the remaining $13 million of the $26 million budget to start construction on the blueprints drawn by Duncan Stroik, professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Placed between the Dow Leadership Center and the Grewcock Student Union, the campus chapel will be a sacred place of beauty and worship for all students and faculty.
Since he became president in 2000, Arnn has envisioned a chapel on campus.
“Reading the founding documents of the college, in particular Article 6 which explains how by precept and example the college will teach the essentials of Christian faith and religion, Dr. Arnn saw the need for a chapel,” Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé said.
In the last year, the plans for the chapel accelerated when a donor came forward with a generous gift that covered about half of the budget.
Provost David Whalen explained the architectural vision of the senior administration and benefactors:
“We told Mr. Stroik, ‘Design something classical, American and liturgical, not Catholic, Protestant, Greek, or Anglican,” Whalen said. “Every element of the chapel is tied to our classical forbearers, American forbearers, and intellectual components of Central Hall.”
To avoid competing with Central Hall, the chapel’s two towers are built to perfectly wrap the one tower of Central Hall. Whalen and Péwé both stressed that the chapel’s interior was designed to feel capacious and suited for concert venues but still intimate for a group of 100. Its limit occupancy will be 1,400.
Compiling a short list of contemporary architects who could design something both beautiful and sacred, Péwé said that Stroik quickly became the obvious choice.
“Duncan connects with the college and mission, and understands the central importance of religion on our campus,” Péwé said.
Studying the greatest churches of all time, Stroik said he designed Hillsdale’s chapel in light of what these buildings share: “a sense of transcendence, appeal to the visual senses, the use of noble and long-lasting materials, the basic symbols of faith and the directionality for a pilgrim community.”
The chapel is designed to reflect the historical and cultural context Hillsdale sees itself continuing.
“The architecture grows out of our rich inheritance in the Judeo-Christian architecture of 2000 years and Greco-Roman culture,” Stroik said via email. “We are trying to tie into the classical tradition in America, both Washington, D.C. and the colonial period and we were especially interested in tying back to the great English church tradition of Sir Christopher Wren or St. Martin in the Fields in London.”
Once the $13 million is raised and the construction plans are approved in the final budget check, construction may begin as early as next June.
“I suppose it is a kind of church that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington or Abraham Lincoln would approve of,” Stroik said. “But it is also meant to be a place that the future students of Hillsdale will find welcoming and prayerful.”
