Ready in time for your political science essay on the relationship between religion and capital, Estudio ALA in Guadalajara, Mexico, has built a terracotta chapel inside a tequila factory. I feel blessed that my own employers have never tried to mingle religion with the workplace, but if you’re going to encourage that sort of thing, perhaps a distillery is the best place to start.
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The architects told Dezeen that the factory is located in the western state of Jalisco, one of the most religious areas in the country. The Centinela Chapel is inspired by the religious spaces people of the region create inside their own homes. ALA state on their web site:
By looking at the relation that the people have with these spaces, we come to the solution of the plan and it is with the changeable location of the cross and with the opening and closing of doors that we manage to modify the spaces. Local materials were used as a link between the culture and the people of the region allowing the chapel to blend with its surroundings.
Think back to every employees-only area you’ve seen, every smoking lounge or break room. They’re typically very basic, one may say drab, places. You’d be tempted to suspect that such a space inside a factory would follow the trend. Rather, the simplicity of ALA’s design works in favor of the chapel. It fits, neither rising miles above the factory nor being brought low by the industrialism of the rest of the building. ALA states:
The spaces between its walls form patios which frame essential views of the landscape, the tall dominant volume frames the sky allowing light in to cause dramatic shadows, the low height of its main entrance opening underlines the feeling of intimacy and of a sacred space.
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Centinela Chapel by Estudio ALA. Photographs by Víctor Orendain.
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