The congregation of Grace Lutheran Church in Thornville, Ohio hired RKA to transform their worship spaces and worship support spaces into a more uplifting and flexible environment for the celebration of Word and Sacrament. RKA has provided facilities analysis and programming services, and is continuing to provide design services for a renovation project that will aesthetically and functionally reconcile the 1962 building addition with the late nineteenth-century Gothic Revival sanctuary.
Daylighting will be introduced into the chancel by the relocation of a historical stained-glass window to the chancel wall and the addition of two new dormers along the sides of the chancel. The heavy, dark reredos encasing the Cross will be replaced by a paneled wood wainscot while the Cross will be suspended from the peak of the reconfigured chancel ceiling. The knotty pine finish of the chancel and sanctuary ceiling will be muted and lightened with a wash of white stain while the incohesive variety of wood finishes for liturgical appointments and furniture will be refined to a complementary selection of finishes.
Sacred Scriptural verses and symbols framed in Gothic style tableau will punctuate the side walls of the sanctuary and enhance the processional rhythm of the worship space interior. Historical stained-glass windows obscured by the 1962 addition of a balcony will be returned to full view and restored after the balcony is removed in its entirety. A new large and accessible chancel platform will replace the existing confined and multi-leveled 1962 chancel platform to accommodate a variety of worship and community events. An enlarged vestry and sacristy will provide a more ample and reverent place for the liturgical ministers to prepare for worship services.
Check out more about this project on our website here:
