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:
“There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every mans spice-box seasons his own food.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)