Otaniemi Chapel
Otaniemi Chapel (Finnish: Otaniemen kappeli) is a Lutheran chapel located in the Student Village of Otaniemi campus of Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. The chapel was designed by the architect couple Heikki and Kaija Siren for a 1954 architectural competition, completed in 1956 and inaugurated in 1957.
The chapel is located on a small hill in the woods, surrounded by pine and birch trees. The main materials of the chapel are red brick and wood, tying the chapel together with other brick buildings in the campus area, including the main university buildings designed by Alvar Aalto. The building is entered from a walled courtyard that also has a bell tower. The chapel itself, past a clubroom, has two side walls made of bricks. The parallel walls “channel a progression from a secular to a spiritual view of nature”: the altar wall made of glass, opening to the surrounding nature with a white cross standing among the trees.
