LAKE CHAPEL

The Lake Chapel of San Giovanni in Val di Lago is a small octagonal church, built in the middle of the sixteenth century on the shores of Bolsena lake, on the ruins of an ancient medieval church, along the Via Francigena. The Via Francigena is an ancient road and pilgrimage route running from Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome and to Apulia, in southern Italy, where there was the embarkation for the Holy Land. Nowadays many pilgrims still follow this route on foot, on horseback, or by bicycle, as the Via Francigena has been designated Major Cultural Route of the Council of Europe. This project is aimed to reuse this space as a Pilgrim Center and bring life back inside a late Renaissance church along the Via Francigena path. The design proposal is trying to maximize the appreciation to the chapel and minimize the impacts from the newly added building. Since ruin itself has its unique vitality and beauty that needs to be cherished. The ruin is close to the sightseeing spots of Lake Bolsena, and it’s located in an idyllic context with flat topography. Meanwhile, the octagonal and symmetrical form of the chapel gives it some properties of centrality and exclusiveness. An attitude of being respectful to this decided that the new building will act as a medium to strengthen the connection between the ruin and its surrounding environment. And in this way, to highlight the chapel’s existence, the new building only serves as its foil. The idea of landscape architecture is largely applied to the external auditorium with a topographic roof connecting to the ground, which allows visitors to walk onto it to have a better and different observation perspective of the ruin. Also, the topographic roof provides natural changes of vegetation throughout the four seasons. To provide visitors with a better view of the lake, a viewing platform is mounted on the top of the dome. And with tree pits installed, it again reflects the landscape architecture. To minimize the structural impacts to the chapel and according to the octagon shape, eight prefabricated concrete modules are utilized to form the dome. It generates scenes and experiences of the Holy Spirit, which mainly come from the light cast down from the skylight. Artificial light compensation will be used to ensure the light affects all day long. All the modulars are fixed to the foundation and have no structural connection to the ruin wall. It makes the space underneath the dome with opportunities to interact with the outdoor surroundings. On the top of each modular, there is an accommodation with a view looking through the aperture of the old wall. The space of the auditorium is organized to give it flexibility, which can be switched between indoor & outdoor, large open space & smaller enclosed space. The folding door allows the space to be easily rearranged for different events and have multiple shared space and relationships with its adjacent rooms. And the roof provides a cozy place between the ruin and the auditorium lobby which protects from strong sunshine in the afternoon and allows outdoor events. More pilgrim accommodations are located on the south side of the new building to provide convenience to the visitors who do not want to climb up to the top of the dome and to address the shortage of accommodations in certain periods. For events such as weddings and celebrations, the common dining hall and the auditorium can be used as a whole connected with the transitional space which enhances the interaction with the outdoors and the back side of the chapel. The flexibility provides more opportunities for the site to be used by local communities.