Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Seating: 790
Area: 11,000 sf
Construction: Wood frame and concrete block, on concrete slab, timber trusses in worship space, tile roof. Stucco exterior finish.
Construction cost: 1,030,000
Date of completion: 1987
Background
It was a bright Sunday morning at Our Lady of Las Vegas in Las Vegas. Pastor Jim Bevan was on his way to the coffee and donuts after mass in the social hall. My wife, Pam and I introduced ourselves and after some small talk, I mentioned I was an architect. Fr. Bevan told us that Our Lady was about to embark on an architect search for a new sanctuary. I said I’d love to participate. There would be an interview with several architects who would make presentations to compete for the commission. This would be my first “from scratch” church, after designing Christ the King Catholic church for G.C.Wallace engineering in , also in Las Vegas. However, the chance of my partition dimmed as I was late for the meeting of the building committee. But the previous presenters had overstayed their visit, so I was safe. My preparation for the presentation began with an analysis of the church site, zoning profile, existing buildings, and it’s history.
I developed three sketch site plans to show several opportunities for the location of the completion of the parish plan. The discussion was lively and the committee seemed pleased with the presentation. My scheme was selected and I sent them a fee proposal and we were off. The committee at Our Lady was quite different than the previous Catholic church. While they agreed that the seating should be radial the altar platform would be traditional and the seating fix pews. There were meetings with the Pastor, assistant pastor and several key members of the building committee.
Project Images
About the Design
A common approach of Catholic parishes is to develop a social hall first on a new site and later build the church building on the prime portion of the site. In this case the corner at the intersection was the place for this church. Planned for about 800 seats the design called for a large gathering space with full immersion baptismal, daily chapel, choir, sacristy off the gathering space, rest rooms and parish offices. All radiated off the gathering space.
But the real conceptual strength comes from the spiral path the Eucharistic liturgy is entered and completed. It begins with the family at home, riding in the car, turning to the right, then right again into the parking lot. Family turns quiet, steps toward the outer court, pass the fountain, where the face of Christ lies in mystery below the disturbed surface of water, passing under the portal at the door, entering the Gathering Space, toward the font crowned with the Baldachino above, where Baptism symbolizes a Metanoa, their change of life direction toward Jesus Christ, and turning right on into the Sanctuary where the Eucharist is waiting.
The main feature of the Sanctuary is the star-pierced, Hebrew sky of wood paneling, penetrated by the apparently, unsupported bell tower, surrounded by a glass skylight. The tower, symbol of Christ penetrating the Hebrew sky-dome, seems to originate from the assembly, Light from the skylight around the throat of the tower reflects off the face of the tower providing ligh to the assembly below.
The space is octagonal, contained by two walls, with an aisle serving the seating between them. The inner wall is carried by a peristyle, broken only by the raised, fixed, marble altar and choir bandbox, as it moves around the octagon. The outer wall is rough, split faced block, capturing the sunlight, reflected down from windows above off the back of the inner wall carried by the colonnade around the assembly. As the sun moves around the building, leaves a trail of light through the day around the octagon. It is a quiet room full of light. There is an architect’s tour to further describe the design.
