Ribbon Chapel

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The chapel is midway on a hill enjoying a panoramic view of Seto Inland Sea of Japan. Mainly used for weddings, the chapel stands in a garden of a resort hotel, “BellaVista SPA&MARINA ONOMICHI,” in Onomichi, Hiroshima.

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A wedding chapel is originally a building type that consists of passage. The aisle a bride walks down with her father becomes the departing passage for the bride and groom, and along the way is filled with profound memory and emotion.

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By entwining two spiral stairways, we realized a self-supporting structure that architecturally embodies the act of marriage in a pure form. Fortunately, in this chapel, the ceremony also takes form as the bride and groom climb separate stairways to meet at the top, ask for heaven’s forgiveness to join as one, and declare their marriage. The two who used to walk separate paths unite as one at the top, and descend the stairway together. It is essentially an architecture purely composed of flow of movement.

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Completion
2013. 12
Principal use
Chapel
Structure
Steel
Site area
3,000㎡
Total floor area
72.2㎡
Building site
1344-2 Oobiraki Urasakicho Onomichishi, Hiroshima
Structure design
ARUP JAPAN
Contractor
P.S. Mitsubishi Construction
Team
Yasuhiro Otani [former staff], Takahiro Shimada [former staff], Keisuke Minato [former staff]
  • 日本商環境設計家協会 JCDデザイン賞2014 大賞
  • Wallpaper * Design Awards 2015 Best Chapel
  • 第10回日本構造デザイン賞
  • LEAF AWARDS 2015 Overall Winner
  • ArchDaily Winner of 2016 Building of the Year Award in the Religious Architecture category
  • 第57回BCS賞(2016年)
  • Architizer A+Awards 2017, Jury Winner in Religious Buildings & Memorials