The Menil Collection. Part III. The Byzantine Fresco Chapel.

 In june 1983 The Menil Foundation was shown photographs of thirteent-century frescoes that had been cut into 38 pieces and removes from their original site near Lysi, in Turkish-occupied section of Cyprus. They were going to be sold individually for profit and dispersed.

The Foundation contacted both the Republic and the Church of Cyprus. With their knowlledge and encouragement the Foundation paid the ransom to the thieves and received posseion of all 38 fragments.

 The frescoes are forever owned by the Church of Cyprus. This Official and emphatic recognition made it possible to build teh Byzantine Fresco Chapel.

The design of the building, by architect Francois de Menil, embodies two important concepts. First that the architecture restore to the frescoes the spiritual significance an dfunction that had been obscured by the removal from  a religious context.Second, that the chapel invoke the frescoes'history but also bring that past to a new context with new meaning.
The material solidity of the original chapel building is shattered and made ephemeral by means of the framented free-standing glass structure.

UPDATE  Feb,8.2012