Eureka Springs, Arkansas - Thorncrown Chapel Update

[Mary Findlay]

For those of you who attended the Eureka Springs, Arkansas pre-rally last fall, following is information on a award recently received by the Thorncrown Chapel.

Thorncrown Chapel, considered the greatest achievement by the late architect Fay Jones, will receive the Twenty-Five Year Award for 2006 presented by the American Institute of Architects. The Institute has honored Jones before for Thorncrown Chapel, a nearly five-story wood & glass structure built outside Eureka Spring, AR.

Thorncrown was constructed using 425 windows and more than 6,000 square feet of glass. It was ahead of its time when it was built in 1980. Thorncrown is a building composed of many small parts with no pieces larger than what two men could carry along the pathway leading to the chapel.

The 25 year award is presented to an architectural design that has lasted 25 to 35 years. Rockefeller Center in NY received the first 25 year award in 1969. Go to www.thorncrown.com to see the Chapel.

This information was provided by Judith Leswig. For those of us who got to experience the chapel, it was truly a memorable event. For those of you who haven't experienced it, don't miss it if you are close by in your travels.