The Chapel

The Chapel is located in the attic of the Ignatius Jesuit Centre, which was founded in 1925 as the Spiritual Exercises retreat house designed by the architect Jože Plečnik. During its history the building served several purposes (among others, as a maternity ward), but today serves its original purpose. The departing point of the design was to create a space of “eloquent silence” within this hollowed-out attic room. The chapel is intended for calm and meditation, far from the noisy world. There are no unnecessary decorative elements, only rough hand-made classical archetypal Christian symbols: the cross, the light, the fish. The use of simple materials, hand-carved by the architect himself put this Chapel at the threshold between architecture and sculpture.