The MIT Chapel is a non-denominational chapel

Chapel

A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

 designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...

. It is located on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, next to Kresge Auditorium

Kresge Auditorium

Kresge Auditorium is an auditorium building for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located at 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was designed by the noted architect Eero Saarinen, with ground-breaking in 1953 and dedication in 1955...

 and Kresge Oval, which Saarinen also designed, in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

. Though a small building, it is often noted as a successful example of mid-Century modern

Mid-century modern

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965...

 architecture in the US. Saarinen also designed the landscaping surrounding all three.

Leland M. Roth included the building in his History of American Architecture, using it to illustrate the contrast between Saarinen's approach and that of Mies

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....

 (who designed a chapel for IIT

Illinois Institute of Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...

). Roth said that "through the sheer manipulation of light and the its focus on a blazingly white marble altar block, Saarinen created a place of mystic quiet."

From the outside the chapel is a simple, windowless brick cylinder set inside a very shallow concrete moat. It is 50 feet (15.2 m) in diameter and 30 feet (9.1 m) high, and topped by an aluminum spire. The brick is supported by a series of low arches. Saarinen chose bricks that were rough and imperfect to create a textured effect. The whole is set in two groves of birch trees, with a long wall to the east, all designed by Saarinen. The wall and trees provide a uniform background for the chapel, and isolate the site from the noise and bustle of adjacent buildings.

Within is an intimate space, stunning in its immediate visual impact. Windowless interior walls are undulating brick. Like a cascade of light, a full-height metal sculpture by Harry Bertoia

Harry Bertoia

Harry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....

 glitters from the circular skylight down to a small, unadorned marble altar. Natural light filters upward from shallow slits in the walls catching reflected light from the moat; this dim ambient light is complemented by artificial lighting. The chapel's curving spire and bell tower was designed by the sculptor Theodore Roszak

Theodore Roszak (artist)

Theodore Roszak was an American sculptor and painter. He was born in Posen, Prussia , now Poznań, Poland, as a son of Polish parents, and emigrated to the United States at the age of two...

 and was added in 1956.

The chapel has an excellent organ that was custom-designed for the space by Walter Holtkamp of the Holtkamp Organ Company

Holtkamp Organ Company

The Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio is one of America's oldest builders of pipe organs. Founded in 1855 by G.F. Votteler, the company was passed on to the Holtkamps in 1931...

, located in Cleveland, Ohio. Holtkamp was instrumental in the 1950s, in the revival of the classic school of organ-building.