Thorncrown Chapel

Non Denominational Chapel Completed In 1980 To A Design By E. Fay Jones, An Apprentice Of Frank Lloyd Wright. Winner Of The American Institute Of Architects Design Of The Year Award In 1981 And Placed By The AIA Among The Finest American Buildings Of The Twentieth Century. · Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Thorncrown is a chapel made almost entirely of glass and native pine standing in the woods outside Eureka Springs, and it is the reason architects drive to Arkansas. E. Fay Jones, who trained under Frank Lloyd Wright, designed it for a retired schoolteacher whose hillside kept attracting passers-by who wanted to stop and look at the view. It is forty-eight feet tall, carries more than four hundred windows and some six thousand square feet of glass, and was built under a self-imposed rule that no component could be larger than two men could carry down the path - so no machinery ever touched the site and the surrounding trees were never cleared. The roof is held up by a lattice of crossed timber whose steel joinery weighs almost nothing, and the effect from inside is of a building that is barely there. The American Institute of Architects gave it their Design of the Year award in 1981 and later placed it among the best American buildings of the century. It is free to walk into.

12968 Highway 62 West, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, 72632, United States

Open daily during the main season, roughly spring through to the end of autumn, daytime hours only. It closes for part of the winter - historically through January and February - and reopens in spring. It is a working chapel: non-denominational services are held on Sunday mornings in season, and the chapel is closed to visitors during weddings, which are frequent and can be booked at short notice. Ring before making the drive; a closed chapel is the single most common disappointment here.

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