The Single Cell Layout
Perfecting the chapel had necessitated a long process of iteration and re-design to meet the wishes of the Cemetery Directors for a new nondenominational style. William Hosking mastered the brief admirably, providing them with a chapel building that achieved the company's objective remarkably well, both in its choice of materials and style of design.
However, of equal significance was its layout in plan section; for the chapel comprised just a single internal chamber that would be available to all, regardless of denomination; marking the chapel out in a practical, functional sense, in addition to its external appearance, as the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. Moreover, its cruciform plan adopted equal arms as in a Greek cross, giving conceptual strength to this concept of equality before God, through its design approach. At a time when cemeteries had to have separate denominational chapels or at best, a double-cell arrangement, Hosking's chapel was entirely unique to European cemetery design.
Read more about this topic: Abney Park Chapel
Famous quotes containing the words single and/or cell:
“Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.”
—Sophocles (497406/5 B.C.)
“Let man consider what he is in comparison with all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this remote corner of nature; and from the little cell in which he finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him estimate at their true value the earth, kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is a man in the infinite?”
—Blaise Pascal (16231662)