The Ruined Chapel


"The Ruined Chapel" is one of the more difficult projects. Besides the use of the normal building blocks there are also custom made building parts in this project.

Click on the images to enlarge them:


The ruined chapel is my most difficult and time consuming project so far when it comes to build with plaster blocks. The finished project measures 19 by 11 inch and is 10.5 inch high.

I think it’s interesting to know that this project started off as a concept consisting out of nothing more than a layout in the form of a cross. The final project existed out of a series of logical steps rather than designing and drawing the entire project on paper before building it

What I used to build the Chapel:
Fieldstone Mold- Cast 70 times (just for the large arch alone)
Gothic Roof Tile Mold- cast 35 times
Fieldstone Accessory Mold- cast 08 times
Wooden plank Mold- cast 10 times
Chipped Froor Mold- cast 12 times
Fieldstone Floor Mold- cast 01 times
Self hardening clay
Foam Board
Acrylic Paints (15 different shades of colours)
Plastic figures 1:72 and skeleton 25mm size


Wanting to make some kind of religious building I soon focussed on making a church and even better a cathedral. Imagine a cathedral in a 25mm scale. That would make the project incredible large and heavy. So I went for the smaller version, the chapel. I did not entirely let go of the idea of building a cathedral and tried to get its form into this chapel. The cross section and the side corridors are two features that must express this.



I started this project with only one form in mind, the large cross. To determine its size I first layout this cross using floor tiles of 1 by 1 inch. During this process it became clear to me that the rear section had to be octagonal shaped. The two 3 by 3 inch towers came automatically because in my opinion a cathedral has two main towers with the entrance in the middle. The two towers were sticking out on the sides of the structure as the cross section still does. Looking at this, I just added another doorway in the tower and in the side of the cross section and connected the two with a corridor. It wasn’t planned, it was just logical.

Before laying out my first idea I have been playing around with some of the gothic arches and came up with an interesting form that I wanted to use for my chapel. Especially the beam that supports the large window and entrance forms makes it look even a bit Oriental or Moorish. Since this building is a very old building, I decided immediately that it had to be built out of fieldstones.

Although the chapel turned out a lot smaller than the original cathedral plan, it still is large. So Building the first layers made me decide to split up this project into two main parts. Since I’m building a series of ruined buildings, it became logical to place the ruined parts there where the building splits up.

Building the structure means stacking blocks, look at it, alter it, breaking it down again and glue it all together. The niches can be found all around and mostly there where walls tend to be a bit longer. Once, when I was in France I saw a very old chapel that had 3 niches right below a pointed roof. I must have seen this when I was in my teens. I never seem to forget that image. And now, many years later, there is that image again on the side of the cross section.

The pointy roof above the entrance had to come back twice in the cross section. Since I built a wall with three niches on top it was logical to place the "pointy roof" behind the three niches and even (after some experimenting) made me decide to place a small round window in it that seemed to fit in perfectly.

A lot of work went into the octagonal shape. I had to cut the stones into the right angle by hand. I just forced myself to do at least one row a day. But things would get worse.



Finishing the wall structure of the entire chapel brought me to the next step, the roof sections. In between the two steps there was the wood section. I made all the wood parts that were necessary to support the roofs and also added all the support beams for the windows. Beware, all the so called wooden parts are also made out of plaster.

The roof sections were first made out of foam board. Easy to cut and glue and let you make desired forms quickly. I planned to glue the plaster gothic roof tiles on the foam board. However before doing this I tested a piece and found out that I did not like the size of the roof tiles. I had to size them down 2/3rd of its actual size. I did not count the number of tiles I used for the roofs but you must know I downsized them all by hand using a tiny sharp saw. (this was the most time consuming and testing part of the entire project)

Painting the Chapel and photo's of the finished project:


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