The tony College Part of New Orleans is house to 2 academic establishments, Loyola College and Tulane College. They’re instantly adjoining to one another, however larger, richer Tulane casts a shadow on Loyola’s 24-acre major campus, which is hemmed in by Tulane on one aspect and high-end residential on the opposite. “Loyola’s campus is just like the little brother,” John P. Klingman, professor emeritus of structure at Tulane’s Faculty of Structure, instructed AN. “The 2 universities ought to have extra interplay with one another, however they don’t.”
Now, a brand new constructing by Trahan Architects guarantees to place Loyola on the map architecturally. The not too long ago accomplished Chapel of St. Ignatius and Tom and Gayle Benson Jesuit Heart is steeped in Jesuit symbolism: Agency founder Victor F. “Trey” Trahan III started with a “collection of circles” that intersect and create interstitial kinds just like the fish, a illustration of Christ.
“We embraced the weather of Jesuit references, like probability and unpredictability,” Trahan stated. “We like design that’s imbued with thriller.” Brad McWhirter, companion at Trahan Architects, added, “We studied the Gothic vernacular of the campus and determined we didn’t need to replicate it. We wished a sacred house, an structure of probability that may be a stunning factor.”
Trahan admits to a robust Japanese affect; the nation was a historic web site of Jesuit proselytization, as dramatized in Martin Scorsese’s Silence. “The Japanese learn about humility in design,” Trahan stated. One notably vital textual content was Jun’ichir’ō Tanisaki’s In Reward of Shadows, which states that “synthetic mild erodes our souls.” To ship the required pure mild, the architects included 5 vertical home windows across the perimeter of the facade, plus a central skylight.
Situated on the location of the previous library at Loyola, the spherical, 4,620-square-foot chapel at first appears misplaced, even jarring. Trahan stated the geometry eliminated linear hierarchies and enabled a round seating structure. Axes are used at the side of the circles to bolster connections to the adjoining campus quad, a round panorama function that makes use of palm bushes, and the chapel altar. Trahan Architects, with the help of Paris-based design studio Goons, designed the movable, stackable white ash chairs for the inside. The assorted liturgical vessels, together with chalices, stands, crosses, and the baptismal font, had been realized by Trahan Architects working alongside artisans.
The outside brickwork, too, has deep roots. In accordance with McWhirter, “The introspective solitude of St. Ignatius discovered kinship within the Japanese artistry with tea bowls, that are made with clay and hand shaped. These early conceptual concepts for the chapel led us to embrace the unique brick buildings of the Loyola campus. We arrived at a design during which the bricks are hand-made terra-cotta produced in Italy. They’re skinny with a translucent with a white glaze that hints on the underlying purple clay physique.”
Because of its roundness and brickwork, the Loyola chapel first calls to thoughts Eero Saarinen’s chapel at MIT. However retired Tulane professor Klingman, whereas stating that the Loyola chapel is “serene and stylish,” famous particular distinctions between the 2 works. “Saarinen was so able to making a procession,” Klingman stated. “You enter right into a transitional house after which into the cylinder. At Loyola, you simply enter the narthex and also you’re proper there, with no transitional house by any means.”
Upon coming into on both aspect of a pointy, cross-shaped steel type set in entrance of the glass, the brick-faced facade conceals a structural shock: The chapel is supported by cross-laminated timber, which marks the primary use of this technique in Louisiana. Not like in different mass timber buildings, this side is aesthetically suppressed: No timber is seen, inside or exterior.
Inside, a slicing ceiling directs your view into the chapel and the frontal altar. The primary sanctuary is a whole circle, whereas an arcing group house is trimmed by the perimeter wall. Extra round rooms make up the remainder of the inside, with the interstitial house between the rooms given over to storage, companies, and the vestry. Two Marian chapels department off the principle house, and different areas embrace a vestibule, a multi-purpose room, a eucharistic chapel, and a restroom.
The round theme continues with the bricks, McWhirter stated: “They’re imperfect, and by arraying them on the round plan of the chapel they produce a distinct impact from the campus structure whereas concurrently referencing the brick particulars of the campus. Each nook on the chapel is executed with a full lapped brick, which creates the signature ‘zipper’ coursing sample you see on the facade.”
Past the brickwork, the Loyola chapel was the fruit of many skills. A Brooklyn ceramicist crafted the liturgical accoutrements like chalices, and Bruno Walpoth, an Italian sculptor, executed statues of St. Ignatius and the Virgin Mary. “The St. Ignatius statue depicts him exiting from a cave,” McWhirter stated, referring to the Spanish cave the place the saint formulated his religious workout routines. (The story was additionally inspirational for a 1997 chapel devoted to the saint on the campus of Seattle College, designed by Steven Holl Architects.)
For his half, Trahan sees the chapel as an train in openness and progressive concepts. “It was the best way to create a spot that was about fairness,” he stated. “For Catholics, while you cross the edge, you might be asserting your religion.”
McWhirter added, “The chapel is an train in openness. All are welcome right here.”
James McCown was an architectural journalist and the creator of The House Workplace Reimagined: Areas to Assume, Mirror, Work, Dream, and Surprise (Rizzoli, 2024).
Editor’s Notice: James McCown filed this textual content in 2025 previous to his demise on December 14, 2025. Learn his AN obituary right here.
