St. Andrew's Chapel, a former divinity school chapel in West Philadelphia, was designed in the Collegiate Gothic style in 1925 by Philadelphia architects Zantzinger, Borie & Medary. Nationally recognized artisans were commissioned to execute the chapel's spectacular decorative program in woodwork, wrought iron, stained glass, and gilding and painted finishes. The building was vacated in the 1970s and has since been without a steady use, in part due to the relatively small amount of usable space in its soaring vertical design. It is owned by the University of Pennsylvania.
The St. Andrew's studio team sought a feasible reuse for the chapel and attached deanery that would stabilize the buildings, maintain the integrity of important interior spaces, and preserve character-defining elements. It also looked to the building's broader context: the property owner's priorities, the current use of the block by the Parent Infant Center and the Penn Alexander School, and the needs of the Spruce Hill neighborhood.
This multifaceted framework was used to evaluate a range of reuse strategies for reinvigorating the chapel and deanery. Three schematic proposals focused on a potential reuse of the chapel's open nave as a performance space, recreation center, or envelope for commercial/office infill; two smaller interventions for hospitality and retail conversion were also considered. The final preservation plan included the financial and management implications of each schematic proposal, as well as conditions surveys of both buildings.
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