Cemetery Chapel of Saint Mary of the Angels

The overall new design of the cemetery chapel "St. Maria der Engelen" at the Rotterdam Catholic cemetery "St. Lawrence" was created by Francine Houben from the Delft office Mecanoo, resulting in a dignified structure, carefully composed of historical influences and forms of modern language. After the original building became a victim of unstable ground and the old vault could no longer support the newly built chapel in 1963, Francine Houben was commissioned for a new design. With its imposing roof, golden ceiling, and "wavy" wall, the Rotterdam chapel connects to the sensual elements of Baroque. An aura of intended tranquility and sobriety prevails in the intimate interior space. The path of the funeral procession leads through the continuously flowing space of the chapel. The dynamic design of the space provides a framework for the ritual of splashing the coffin, which impressively reflects the Christian view of life and death within its temporal and spatial unlimitedness. The interior walls shine with an intense, deep blue. The walls inscribed with multilingual texts from the funeral liturgy serve as a mirror of the cultural diversity of Rotterdam. The roof of the chapel hovers like a curved sheet of paper, like a golden homogeneous surface above the inner space. An opening in the roof structure bathes the altar made of polished concrete with a beam of daylight.