St Luke’s, Darien (CT) – the chapel of the Primary School

Continuing the theme (of creating furniture with relevance to modern liturgy and response to the architecture of the space), December saw the installation of a new altar, lectern, clergy seating and prayer desks and a set of stacking pews for the children’s chapel at St Luke’s, Darien in Connecticut, USA. The chapel is used as children’s worship space, and the furniture now includes some stacking benches for the younger members of the congregation, all of which can be re-arranged for different types of service.

Working closely with the Rector, Canon Ryan Fleanor, and the parish advisors (Richard Turlington Architects from New Haven), we developed a design language that enhances the sense of the numinous, responds to the existing art works and, in particular, the striking stained glass.

That glass was installed sixty years ago, crafted by J & R Lamb Studios, at that time the oldest stained-glass company in America. At the dedication sermon delivered on 28 June 1964, the Rector, Rev Robert Nelson Back said: ‘the chapel is primarily a children’s chapel. Although we use it for celebrations of the Holy Communion, for marriages, baptisms and funerals, we use it for convenience because it is small and intimate. It is the Chapel that our children first develop as worshipping Christians. Therefore, the new windows are children’s windows, intended to speak to them through bright pure colours – the kind they like – and the figures of animals and people, sun, moon stars, lightening and storms and fire – natural phenomena they observe daily – testifying to the art and wonder of man and the glory and inexpressible majesty of God. What we think of the new windows is important. But what the children think, and what the windows say to them are more important. To some degrees these windows will mould their Christian life and character’.

One of the aims of the new altar was to emphasise that original sentiment and create a piece that could not only work liturgically as the focus of the chapel but also draw attention (in the reflections of the top) to the mystery embodied in the coloured light in the windows. While light may not itself be divine, it is often used metaphorically for many different things – hope, truth, love and life. It is also a symbol of Christ himself, often referred to as the ‘Light of the World’.