My parents and I were visiting the grave of a family friend in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery when we came across this unique chapel, from 1978. Of course, the doors were locked, and I can’t find any pictures of the interior of this chapel, but apparently it is decorated with work by Robert Frei.

The chapel is a great example of late Modernist architecture of the 1970’s, which unfortunately is increasingly being destroyed around the country. I have an affinity to the architecture of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s; it is quirky, and now largely gone only thirty years later. But it provides a sort of backdrop to my childhood, when it was brand new and not yet replaced by 1990’s banality.

The second page of this pdf gives a brief history of the chapel. At a later time, I will investigate the rest of Jefferons Barracks; a strange mishmash of National Guard installation and county park–in what was once the most important military base west of the Appalachians.