Downtown Chicago is home to the world’s highest chapel. The Chicago Temple skyscraper has a worship space at 400 feet above the ground.
Architecture critic Blair Kamin tweeted an image of the Chicago Temple. Highlighting rectangle is mine.
This church is across the street from one of my favorite public artworks, the Picasso. During Christmas, Chicago installs a large Christmas tree in this public plaza.
This building is also known as “First United Methodist Church of Chicago” and it houses three sanctuaries:
- Sanctuary 1 is four stories tall on the ground floor with seating available for 1,000 people.
- Sanctuary 2 is also known as the “Dixon Chapel” and is on the second floor.
- Sanctuary 3 also known as the “Sky Chapel” is the smallest sanctuary and is situated at the base of the steeple with seating for 30 people.
Do a Google image search for: “Sky Chapel” “Chicago Temple”. It’s pretty cool how they integrated the cross-beams in the church.
Also, there is a Luther Rose in the Sky Chapel’s stained glass! I came across this image of a Luther Rose stained glass.
I thought this photo was mistitled with “Sky Chapel”. How can the Luther Rose appear in a Methodist church? But a panoramic image does indeed show the Luther Rose within the context of the Sky Chapel.
What is the Luther Rose doing in a Methodist church?
From Wikipedia:
At 400 ft (120 m) above ground level, it is considered the world’s highest worship space and contains 16 stained glass windows. Four depict scenes from the Old Testament, four from the life of Jesus, four represent the history of the Christian Church in the Old World, and the final four the church in the New World.
I’m not sure if they are considering the Luther Rose to be part of the Church in the Old World, or the Church in the New World. But I’m assuming this church is celebrating Protestant’s place in church history.