Grace Lutheran Chapel
10015 Lance Drive, North County
Architect: Manske & Dieckmann, 1958

Stained Glass: Century Art Glass Co. / Robert E. Sumner & Sons

A large tent-form box - orange brick on the outside, curved wood laminate beams on the inside. The space is clean and contemporary, and looks as good as new. Grace Lutheran was built as a new home for a congregation that once worshiped in a Gothic building in JeffVanderLou.

The main set of windows are set in a long projecting bay, outside the main structure of the building; smaller windows fleck the walls above. The projecting bay contains the Bible Story windows, portraying significant moments from the Old and New Testaments, on the east and west sides, respectively. The artwork is cartoonishy simple in style, but the undiluted colors of the glass let an ocean of colored light drench the space.

Manske & Dieckmann would follow this church a year later with the far more innovative Independent Congregational Church.