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The most famous work by Fay
Jones is undoubtedly the Thorncrown Chapel, located in a thickly wooded
part of the Ozark Mountains in western Arkansas. The chapel essentially
consists of a glass hall that is crisscrossed by wooden structural
members.
The design of the chapel was influenced by the restrictions of the site.
To maintain the thin walkway that winds through oak trees, it was
essential that all the building elements could be brought up the path by
just two men. The structure is supported by timber columns that are
braced by a lattice of slender wood members acting in tension, ensuring
the two sides of the chapel stay together. Yet, at the intersection
points in the lattice, a steel fitting allows for a void, which lightens
and complicates the appearance of the structure. The combination of the
lattice and columns reflect the surrounding oak trees with their slender
trunks and tangle of reaching limbs. The high roof, punctuated by a
glass skylight, yet obscured by the tensile members, blends with the
forest canopy. The base of the Chapel, constructed from native slate and
stone, blends with the ground, but the rough composition has an agrarian
crudeness that reminded me of Robert Frost’s Mending Wall.
The glass plays very little into any impression of the space; it
disappears as the columns seem to join the trunks in the forest. The
wood members are stained in a subtle grey colour that matches the colour
of the oak’s bark and are adorned with dental details that seem to break
the long vertical surfaces the same way the splits in bark do. Natural
coloured wood lanterns hang from the columns. They direct light up and
down and through cuts in the shape of a crucifix sewn into their
surfaces. Yet their warm colour set against the grey of the structural
wood provides warmth without the lamps ever being lit. The chapel cannot
be used at night because the lighting is not sufficient.
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