DPConrad, Architect

grounded in craft, dedicated to service and design excellence

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• IFRAA/AIA 2011 Religious Art & Archtecture Merit Award

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A Peace Lamp

for Hyattsville Mennonite Church

This lighting fixture project reinterprets ancient technology in contemporary terms. For millennia, oil lamps have provided illumination and served symbolic and ritual purposes in dwellings and temples the world round. Self-dowsing properties made them useful even aboard ship.

The Hyattsville Mennonite Church uses an oil lamp in weekly prayers for peace. The architect designed the oil lamp for the congregation, mindful of the simple aesthetics of their tradition and the straightforward laminated wood arch and masonry construction of their mid-century modern church building.

A single rod, heated and bent holds the wick assembly in place, grips the lamp side, and forms a handle to allow adjustment of wick height. The wick height above the oil controls flame height. Lowering the wick into the oil immediately extinguishes the flame and soaks the wick in preparation for its next lighting.

A range of oil types –

Olive Oil of the Ancients,

Colza oil of 19th century Europe and

Corn Oil of the New World

are all appropriate fuels for the lamp.

Floating the oil over a layer of water – also an element with symbolic richness - allows control over the proportions of the lamp’s components.

An off-the-shelf vase of clear glass makes the oil visible, amplifying and refracting the emitted light and giving the lamp a significant presence despite its small size and modest flame.

Drawings

Components

Proportions

Context

• A Solfège of Diversions-(Section Under Construction)

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• edited 2018 01 15 by DPC