Legacy All Faiths Chapel
CLIENT
Legacy Emanual Hospital
REGION
Portland, Oregon
YEAR
Completed in 2025
GFA
100 m²
DISCIPLINES
Legacy Emanuel Medical Center was founded by the Swedish First Immanuel Lutheran Church in 1912. The Interfaith Chapel within the center reflects Legacy’s commitment to care for the whole person in body, mind, and spirit. It is also a welcoming and sacred space for everyone, regardless of religious affiliation or spiritual path, providing a space for patients, their loved ones, and hospital staff to find solitude for pause and prayer, reflection, and meditation.
ARCHITECTURE
The vision of this chapel is of a welcoming place and open to all of humanity, thus designed to be accessible to all. The space itself is a metaphor of our earth with its circular form and design, including the glass art, representative of earth, water, sky, and light all reflecting nature and the community. There are no doors to the chapel, representing openness, with smooth curves promoting harmony. As an interfaith worship space, there are hints of multiple faiths using design elements, including heritage Christian art, yin-yang balance and the Qibla orientation.
INTERIORS
The chapel is filled with natural materials, primarily bamboo. It represents longevity and perseverance in multiple cultures, thus used frequently throughout the space. The grooved bamboo provides visual interest on the walls as well as absorbing sound within the chapel. Each entry includes a simulated water light projection and soothing trickling stream audio, with the ceiling tiles mimicking pebbles in a stream bed. The smaller room off the south entry allows guests access to a meditation room without passing through the main chapel, encouraging individual and collective experience. The heritage religious art is preserved outside the new chapel in the south hallway, adjacent to the stained-glass original to the hospital’s chapel. The structure, visible above the center of the space, is an architectural practice of a layered approach, physically and metaphorically peeling layers away to reveal truth.





















