NEWPORT, R.I. – The design of Our Lady of Mercy Chapel on the Salve Regina campus has garnered Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York a 2012 Palladio Award as an outstanding commercial project.
The Palladio Awards, co-produced by Traditional Building and Period Homes magazines, will be presented at a ceremony in July as part of the Traditional Building Conference in Boston. The commercial, institutional and public projects will be published in the June issue of Traditional Building, and the residential projects will be published in the July issue of Period Homes.
Stern, who designed Salve Regina’s Rodgers Recreation Center, which was completed in 2000, was commissioned to design a chapel nestled among the buildings of the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe estate, Vinland (Peabody & Stearns, 1883). The project was completed in 2010.
“An important part of our brief was to display to advantage the generous donation of John LaFarge stained-glass windows that were originally installed in a chapel at the Caldwell house (1890),” Stern writes.
“Our design combines local stone in the tradition of New England country churches with the cedar shingles of nearby Shingle-style buildings by Peabody & Stearns and McKim, Mead & White,” Stern writes. “The chapel establishes an axial relationship with Ochre Court, recasting the buildings of the estate into a consolidated academic campus. The south-facing entrance porch opens onto a new landscaped lawn. The sanctuary accommodates 250 worshipers; the historic windows are set in an adjacent meditation room. The stair tower that links to the common room below is topped with a belfry and steeple, creating a visual landmark for the chapel bells that will gather the Salve community.”
This year’s Palladio Awards jury was comprised of: Stephen Byrns, AIA, LEED AP, partner, BKSK Architects, New York, N.Y.; Donald Kaliszewski, AIA, LEED AP, principal, Urban Design Associates, Pittsburgh, Penn.; Clem Labine, editor emeritus, Traditional Building and Period Homes, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Raymond Pepi, president, Building Conservation Associates, New York, N.Y.; Jack Pyburn, FAIA, principal, Lord, Aeck & Sargent Architect, Atlanta, Ga.; Don Swofford, FAIA, principal, Don Swofford Architect, Charlottesville, Va.; Craig Williams, AIA, LEED AP, principal, David M. Schwarz Architects, Washington, D.C.; Peter Zimmerman, AIA, NCARB, principal, Peter Zimmerman Architects, Berwyn, Pa.