Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel, SOM
Most architects, ourselves included, make pilgrimages to churches and chapels around the globe. We often say it’s for the architecture, yet each visit, each trek, offers its own spiritual and aesthetic interaction. Recently, a visit to the SOM designed Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel in Colorado Springs added to this canon of majestic experiences.
Many are familiar with the stunning visuals of the USAFA Cadet Chapel (they appear on a 2004 first class USPS commemorative). The chapel is part of the training center for officers of the United States Air Force, which is a large and self-contained community at an elevation of 6,500 feet on the east of the Rocky Mountains. The slope creates three levels, with the Cadet Chapel at the pinnacle. Used by cadets, officers and visitors, the chapel, completed in 1958, attracts more than one million visitors per year.
Prepped as we were, our first glance of the chapel surprised us. With 17 rows of spires rising 150 feet towards the heavens, the Cadet Chapel soars – complex, simple and strong.
Only 34 years old, Walter Netsch was the young architect responsible for the design of SOM’s iconic modernist masterpiece. Created as part of the larger campus plan, Netsch’s symbolic structure accommodated the individuality and the secular needs of three major faiths by shaping three distinct chapels under one roof. Prepped as we were, our first glance of the chapel surprised us. With 17 rows of spires rising 150 feet towards the heavens, the Cadet Chapel soars – complex, simple and strong.
Courtesy of U.S. Air Force Academy
During the design process, Netsch detoured to travel to Europe to look at Gothic architecture and Renaissance architecture. Upon his return, he noted, “Gee, we don’t have stone masons today. We don’t have the love of labor through which something is added with the same vocabulary every decade. How can you achieve that effect, but do it all at once?” Folding paper plates into origami, scribbling and sketching, the architect played with geometry and modules. At the suggestion of engineer Ken Nasland, this “radical mind” created a tetrahedron of his own design that he could “flip-flop, turn upside down and inside out” – all at once.
Upon his return, Netsch noted, “Gee, we don’t have stone masons today. We don’t have the love of labor through which something is added with the same vocabulary every decade."
Controversial at first, Netsch’s design, geometry and module are appropriate, rational and stunningly beautiful. The soaring spires are fabricated with a tubular steel frame of 100 identical tetrahedrons spaced a foot apart. The gaps are clad with brilliant Italian Murano glass, which enable diffused light to enter the chapel. Perhaps this is the interior’s most surprising and uplifting design attribute. Color and light allow the Cadet Chapel to glow in meaningful and memorable ways.
We recommend prioritizing a visit to the Cadet Chapel on your bucket list of architectural pilgrimages. Wandering through its sanctuaries you will find the force is with you.
For more information on SOM and the Cadet Chapel visit: https://www.som.com/projects/us_air_force_academy__cadet_chapel
In 1996, the Cadet Chapel was awarded the American Institute of Architects' Twenty-Five Year Award and, as part of the Cadet Area, was named a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2004. The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has long been recognized as one of the most distinguished projects of SOM and, more broadly, of modern architecture in America.
Cite: SOM Journal. “Walter Netsch: The ‘Radical Mind’ That Designed SOM’s Air Force Academy Chapel” 04 Mar 2015.
