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TV-51 | John
Wesley Honors College
Architecture
Williams Prayer Chapel
Located in the heart of IWU’s campus is the Williams
Prayer Chapel. It was dedicated October 5, 2001. Professors
Wilbur and Ardelia Williams personally donated the funds for
this prayer chapel and oversaw the entire building project,
from conception to reality. Their hope is that it becomes for
students, faculty and staff a place of solitude and sanctity
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Williamses’ wanted the chapel’s architecture
to remind visitors of God’s transcendence and eminence.
The peak of the chapel’s cross perched on top of the copper-tiled
steeple reaches 53.5 feet above the campus grounds. Inside,
visitors will find sculptures of a pillar of a cloud, a pillar
of fire, and Jesus in Gethsemane.
The Chapel’s exposed wood beams, made of solid cherry,
are held together with wooden nails reminiscent of medieval
times. The stained-glass
windows, all hand made by Ardelia Williams, are the finishing
touches of the Gothic chapel.
The early Egyptians made their temples with flat roofs, and
windows and doors with lentils supported by columns. During
the Roman period building designers had openings made possible
by the invention of the keystone, a slanting stone at the top
middle of the arch that redistributed the weight to the sides
of the arches.
In 12th-century France the Gothic structure of design developed.
Roofs of churches were pushed up to a point with the expressed
purpose being to lift worshipers’ hearts toward God. At
such an early period, the interior roof trusses were joined
by mortise and tendon joints with holes drilled in the square
beams and wooden treenails pounded into them.
It was the Williamses’ desire to incorporate into the
chapel’s design as many elements of 12th century Gothic
architecture as possible, but vastly reduced in size so as to
encourage private personal prayer for all who enter. |
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