Attolini Lack designed the Chapel Chair for a side chapel at the Holy Cross of Pedregal Parish Church, the first project in which Attolini designed and specified every detail, from the doors to the furniture and doorknobs, lamps, floor patterns, windows – save for the sculptural features above the main entrance of the center chapel – and even the desks and beds. This project also marked the beginning of his exploration of brutalism, having worked mainly under the premises of the International Style for over a decade. In this construction, Attolini created a dialogue between wood, stone, tile and concrete: tuff stone cut in massive blocks were used for the altar tables of each of its chapels, smaller blocks for seating, tables and lecterns, and flat-cut stones for the flooring of the chapels. Tile was used for courtyards and passages as well as some interior spaces. The main courtyard, adjacent to the crossroads where the parish lies, is flanked by massive, poured concrete blocks, one of which bares his A-shaped monogram. All furniture is made from pine beams. The tuff stone is of particular significance in this iconic building in which Attolini consciously reworked elements of brutalist and ecclesiastic architecture, as this stone is one of the very few bridges between pre-Hispanic and colonial architecture in Mexico, having been used equally for ancient structures and for houses and churches during the Mexican Baroque, as well as some iconic modern buildings such as Diego Rivera’s Anahuacali.

The Chapel Chair is made of two basic elements: a base of solid, roughly cut tuff stone on which rest a seat made of battens from a single pine beam. The inclusion of this sculptural chair to our catalogue helps us expand in the exploration of brutalist strain in Mexican architecture, and our mission to thus represent the diverse directions that architects and designers took throughout the 20th Century.