Joseph Storey - Ursuline College Chapel

Ursuline College Chapel

The Ursuline Convent project began when Storey was thirty-two years old. It encompassed the designs for a major chapel, motherhouse, elementary and high school classrooms, and nursery school. Storey established a model here of translating the language of modernism to the traditional public and urban landscape of the small town. The architecture of the convent, known as The Pines integrated major works of art into the siting, the building, and their expressions. Storey maintained an excellent working relationship with the sisters of the Ursuline convent who were encouraging and adventurous clients, and subsequently recommended him highly to become the architect for a similar project for the Ursuline Religious Order in Lima, Peru. This project was prominently featured in both in the RAIC Journal and Progressive Architecture Magazine. The new buildings of the Pines in Chatham were sensitively sited with the nineteenth-century convent structures by making a series of connecting cloisters formed by both buildings and graceful covered walkways. This project has recently been identified by the Ontario branch of the international group for the Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement, to be included on a list of twenty-five examples of significant modern architecture in Ontario.