Structure becomes light
The centre post and dark timber frame hold the roof above you. Around them, Jim Allen’s coloured Perspex windows and entrance light modulators send changing colour across the roughcast walls.
More about Centre post and coloured windows
Roof structure and coloured light
The chapel does not hide how it stands up. The central column is assembled from bolted timbers, with eight struts radiating out to support the roof framing. Dark-stained beams and rafters remain exposed against the lighter kahikatea lining, making the work of the structure legible from below.
The high coloured panels are Perspex, not stained glass. Jim Allen designed them as fields of small rectangular pieces that the Marist builders could assemble. His light modulators above the entrance shape another path for daylight. The windows are not part of the structural frame, but they work alongside it to transform the room.
As the sun moves, colour travels across the rough pebbledash walls. Their sharp texture catches, scatters and deepens the light. The effect can be radiant and quietly divine. Allen recalled the first red and yellow light entering the chapel and people standing together in silence as it moved across the wall.
Chris Cochran relates the centre post to the pou tokomanawa of a meeting house; Niall McLaughlin reads its branching form through the related images of tree and cross. These are interpretations rather than a single settled meaning. It also does practical work: gathering the roof and giving the room its centre.
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