Church of the Heart

The Church of the Heart (마음의 교회) stands in Yeoju (여주), Gyeonggi Province, within Maiim Vision Village (마임비전빌리지), the communications center of the company Maiim (마임). It opened in 2015 as a wedding chapel (웨딩채플), designed by the architect Tadao Ando.

It is also called 숲의 교회 or, in Japanese, 森の教会, "church of the forest".

The scheme has three buildings in the woods: the church, an entrance gallery and a library. One motif joins them, the crystal (결정): a pure geometric form, like a mineral that withstands the harshest climates and melts into nature. Under a skin of smooth sheet steel, each takes the form of a polyhedron suited to its function.

The gallery receives visitors at the entrance. It is a semi-outdoor tunnel, covered by a triangular roof of glass and steel carried on a space frame, and the axis of approach runs straight through it. It is conceived as a gate in the literal sense, and its light keeps it warm even in severe cold.

The library is a shelter for visitors, slightly west of the path from the gallery to the church. It faces a pond ringed with trees, under a smooth steel-sheet roof that rises from the ground, and seems to sit on the water.

The church, at the end of the path, follows the terrain as it is and stands quietly in the forest. Under the steel roof, a double structure of glass and concrete strings together spaces nested like Russian dolls, up to the chapel. The chapel has a thin, long, ladder-shaped plan that repeats the outline of the exterior, and a gently vaulted ceiling that opens toward the front, to the south-west. A large glass window separates it from a courtyard where a small waterfall resounds. It can open wide: the worship hall then fills with the sounds of the forest, water, foliage, birdsong.

Maiim Vision Village is the internal training centre of the companies 마임화장품 (cosmetics) and 마임건강식품 (health food). At the entrance to the Church of the Heart, the gallery can serve as a greenhouse for flowers or plants.

The village is not open to the public: it is an internal training centre, and individuals cannot visit it. Companies and groups can rent it, irregularly, for training; rental requests go to 031-884-1717 (a Korean number).

Address: 경기도 여주시 세종대왕면 용은길 28 (28, Yongeun-gil, Sejongdaewang-myeon, Yeoju-si).