Skip to content

James Gorst Architects

  • Home
  • Projects
    • Projects
  • Practice
    • Profile
    • People
    • Contact
  • Projects
Close

New Temple Complex

Situated on the spur of hillside projecting westwards with expansive across the South Downs National Park, the new temple is grounded on an ancient ley line connecting Chapel Common to the old nunnery of Lyss Place.

Commissioned by The White Eagle Lodge, a spiritual organised founded in 1936, the complex has been conceived as a composition of orthogonal pavilions unified by a cloistered walkway, facing onto an open central courtyard. The arrangement of these pavilions is shifted locally, to create carefully landscaped gardens and to address the processional requirements of the group.

Within the building, the temple follows an outworking of sacred geometries and harmonious mathematical ratios imbued in the philosophy of the White Eagle Lodge, investigating the relationship between the space occupied by a complete congregation and architecture as sacred expression. More to follow later this year.

Building photography by Rory Gardiner, model photography by Ståle Eriksen.

Text

James Gorst’s work has helped to heal one of the most unnecessary and painful wounds in contemporary British architecture: between the traditionalists and the modernists. Like Louis Kahn in the United States or Peter Zumthor in Switzerland, Gorst reminds us that modernism can be beautifully reconciled with the underlying principles of classicism and that modern materials and idioms can carry all the elegance, dignity and grandeur associated with historical masterpieces.

Alain de Botton

© 2023 James Gorst Architects. All rights reserved.

Design: Tom Green Design. Build: Designagogo.