Chapel of the Holy Cross, Catholic chapel in Sedona, United States.
Chapel of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic chapel built from 1954 to 1956 into a red sandstone butte in Sedona. Its front is a pale gray concrete wall with a large cross-shaped opening; the interior has rough reddish-brown walls, a 90-foot iron cross on the southwestern wall, and seating for 150 people.
Local rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude commissioned the chapel in 1954 after decades of planning. Construction finished in 1956 at a cost of 300,000 dollars, with work designed to disturb the rock formations as little as possible.
The name refers to the nearly 90-foot iron cross mounted on the southwestern facade. Visitors can look through large glass windows onto the red rock formations and the valley below, connecting the interior with the surrounding desert.
Access is through a curved ramp that climbs steeply and may be challenging for visitors with limited mobility. The chapel sits in an elevated position and offers a wide view over the surrounding valleys and rock formations.
The chapel was inspired in 1932, when Marguerite Brunswig Staude saw the Empire State Building under construction and conceived a church shaped around a cross. An earlier attempt in Budapest with Lloyd Wright was abandoned when World War II broke out. The 90-foot iron cross on the southwestern wall, sculpted by Keith Monroe of San Francisco, carries the altar and Corpus and also helps hold up the building.
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