The Chapel of the Holy Cross

This video is about The Chapel of the Holy Cross. The chapel was commissioned by an artist named Marguerite Brunswig. The story goes that Marguerite was inspired by a trip to New York city. Her vision was one of a christian cross superimposed on New York's newly built empire state building. Before settling on its current site in Sedona, Arizona she apparently attempted to get a building like it constructed in both Los Angeles and Budapest Hungary to no avail. Marguerite was married in 1938 to Tony Staude and they moved to Sedona. In an airplane over the area she saw a site which she decided was perfect for her chapel, However, the site was owned by the US Forest Service. With connections and hard work she eventually secured government approval and hired a San Francisco based firm called Anshen and Allen to design the chapel. The project architect was Richard Hein with design direction by architect August K. Strotz. The church is reinforced concrete. The walls are 12 “ thick at the base and the concrete is sandblasted to expose the rough aggregate. Although the building is clearly man made, it appears to grow directly from the rock with its stiff and powerful concrete roots. The church took 18 months to build and cost approximately $300,000k at the time. The building was completed in 1956 and eventually donated to the Roman Catholic Church. The building received the AIA’s award of honor in 1957. It’s also designated as a national landmark. This designation goes a long way to preserve not only the building but it’s site and surrounding land. It’s visited annually by hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world. There were 3 million visitors in 2017. I’m Doug Patt. We’ll see you, next time.