DPConrad, Architect

grounded in craft, dedicated to service and design excellence

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• IFRAA/AIA 2007 Religious Art & Archtecture Merit Award

Advent Candelaburm

for Hyattsville Mennonite Church

Each year during Advent, the four Sundays preceding Christmas Day, the church places candles on the walls of their sanctuary that are successively lit during worship services as the seasonal climax of Christmas Day approaches.

The brief required the design and fabrication of a new candelabrum for the 2006 Advent season

In addition to satisfying this simple functional requirement, the architect sought to produce a symbolically rich fixture compatible with the straightforward mid-20th century modern nature of the existing building.

The candle, the symbolic seed of the candelabrum, provides light at the dark time of the year, pairs solid and flame, and comprises the material and the ethereal..

The candle's dual nature inspired the designer's material choices, which juxtapose

white pine and red cedar,

beeswax and copper,

metal and wood,

and reinforce contrasting images of:

light versus dark,

warm versus cold,

enduring versus ephemeral.

The asymmetrical composition uses classic golden section proportions and has visual direction and motion to acknowledge both the linear and cyclical aspects of the Advent observance. Nonetheless, the candelabrum is both visually and literally balanced, its interlocking, interdependent parts form a figure of complementary opposites.

Rendering

Proportions

Context

Detail

• A Solfège of Diversions-(Section Under Construction)

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• edited 2012 01 30 by DPC