The Chamber Church

Büro Ziyu Zhuang - Qingdao, China - 2021

Key words: Archetype, Auditorium, Cave, Divinity, FaCade, Landscape, Ritual, Sanctuary, Structure

Church exterior - Photography: © Shengliang Su

The ChamberChurch is conceived as a fusion of tradition and modernity, drawing on archetypal church forms while reinterpreting them through abstraction and contemporary construction. Its design emphasizes duality: the lower, semi-sunken base embedded in the mountain links to the landscape, while the upper auditorium rises between mountain and water, symbolizing the connection between heaven and earth. This spatial layering grounds the building in its site while projecting it as a modern icon.

The architecture references historic church typologies - basilica layout, bell tower, spire, rose window - yet strips them of ornament, reducing them to essential, abstracted forms. The facade, articulated through sequential slices and voids, produces shifting visual impressions, balancing memory and innovation. At its core, the church reasserts ritual and divinity as timeless anchors, enhanced by its strict east–west orientation and symbolic water steps leading to the sanctuary.

A key conceptual move is the cavernous interior: a flowing, womb-like volume contrasting with the rigid exterior. Drawing on primal associations with caves as shelters and sacred origins, the hall seeks to evoke both security and transcendence, reinforcing spiritual depth. Structurally, portal steel frames unify the building’s form, integrating skin and skeleton.