Faith in Flight: Preserving the Modernist Majesty of the USAF Academy Cadet Chapel

How could I, in the face of the symbols of our Western religion, create something?

Architect Walter Netsch, 34

 

When 34-year-old architect Walter Netsch was handed the monumental task of designing the Cadet Chapel – a centerpiece in the bold new vision for the United States Air Force Academy – it was a commission unprecedented in scale: a Cold War-era project involving cadet quarters for 8,000, a hospital, an airfield, academic and administrative complexes, a court of honor, and more. Over 340 firms competed for the honor, but it was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) that won the contract on July 23, 1954.

In July 1955, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees held hearings on the Air Force Academy, with the House briefly withholding funding over design concerns regarding the Chapel.

 

Nathaniel Owings, Netsch’s mentor and partner at SOM, decided to let the controversy over the chapel settle by focusing attention on other buildings planned for the campus. To give Netsch space and perspective, he sent him on a break – and encouraged him to travel to Europe to study chapels.

 

Netsch returned from Europe deeply moved by the luminous spirituality of Gothic landmarks like Chartres and Sainte-Chapelle. He grappled with a central question: how, in a modern age defined by technology, could he create something equally inspiring? Initially, he explored designs featuring separate spaces for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish worship – a clustered ensemble of chapels. But the scale overwhelmed the site, resembling a monastery more than a military academy. Realizing the need for a single unified structure, Netsch turned to geometry for a solution.

Less than a year later, on May 14, 1955, Netsch presented the first designs at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. While the overall plan met with approval, the Chapel – angular, soaring, and built of modern tetrahedrons – provoked outrage. “I don’t hear the rustle of angels’ wings,” scoffed one senator. “It looks like a bunch of tepees,” said another. Netsch, stunned and tearful, retreated to the back of the room.

 

Within two weeks of this meeting, the Cadet Chapel had drawn sharp criticism from prominent voices in the architectural world – including Frank Lloyd Wright. In a letter to the editor of the Colorado Springs Free Press, Wright dismissed it outright, quipping, “I suggest ten more years of study – and then throw it away.” Notably, Wright had himself entered the original competition in collaboration with Kittyhawk Associates, though he later withdrew from the process. His comments, pointed and public, underscored the deep skepticism among traditionalists who viewed the chapel’s modernist, geometric form as a radical – and perhaps misguided – departure from sacred architectural convention.

The Chapel became one of the first structures intentionally designed to accommodate multiple faiths under one roof within a military academy. Its innovative architecture and commitment to religious pluralism marked a significant development in the evolution of interfaith worship spaces in the United States.

 

“I had designed one little extra chapel... It ended up being a Buddhist temple for a while, a Muslim mosque for a while . . . possibly a Seventh-Day Adventist church,” Netsch remarked while talking about the religious aspect of architecture.

 

Netsch’s iconic “field theory” emerged and took shape during the design process of the Cadet Chapel. It was later used in many of his designs, including the University of Chicago.

 

While sketching in Chicago alongside his engineer, Netsch discovered the architectural potential of stacked, inverted tetrahedrons. These interlocking geometric forms became the foundation for the Cadet Chapel’s soaring structure, with light streaming through narrow seams of glass between each element. Initially envisioning translucent onyx to create a glowing, ethereal effect, Netsch’s vision ultimately led to the invention of mirrored glass specifically for the Air Force Academy. The concept of using onyx, though set aside for the chapel, later found a home in SOM partner Gordon Bunshaft’s celebrated design for the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

 

When asked why he used the word “field,” Netsch explained that each design – though seemingly discrete – could be envisioned as a kind of field, like a field of daisies or wheat. These fields were governed by geometric logic and often based on symbolic numerical systems.

 

“It would depend on what the design is based on. You see how this geometry all connects, all these lines connect. This one is based on a theory of nine, the Hindu number. I grab a number like that. I’m Protestant, so I don’t have a number,” Netsch said while talking about one of his designs.

 

Netsch grounded the design of the Air Force Academy using the numbers three-and-a-half and seven as modular foundations. Inspired by the proportional logic of Japanese tatami mats – but scaled to suit American dimensions – he applied this system rigorously across the Academy’s horizontal, vertical, and spatial planning.

By 1962, at the foot of Colorado’s Rampart Range in the Rocky Mountains, Netsch’s chapel pierced the sky – its jagged aluminum spires evoking both the ascent of jet planes and the rugged peaks beyond.

 

The chapel at the Air Force Academy remains a reminder of a time when architects were optimistic about proposing answers to issues of tradition, symbolism, and cultural values

Nathaniel Owings, The Spaces in Between: An Architect's Journey

 

What was once controversial had become a soaring emblem of American modernist architecture, bold in vision and unapologetically futuristic.

 

“I keep trying to define the time when architecture became iconic. Actually, it was the Air Force chapel for me,” Netsch recalled in 2001, reflecting on the most important point in his career.

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About the Author

Utkarsha Laharia is trained as an architect and an arts journalist. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) from India, a Master’s in Arts Journalism from Syracuse University, and an MBA from New England College. Her writing has been published in Architectural Record, Architect’s Newspaper, AN Interior, Newsweek, American Theatre, The (Syracuse) Post-Standard, The (Charleston) Post and Courier, and The (South Side) Stand, among others.

 

Currently based in Chicago, Utkarsha works for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. She is deeply engaged in the city’s design and architecture community, having helped research and curate the Chicago Women in Architecture’s 50th-anniversary exhibition last year at the Chicago Architecture Center. Additionally, she serves on the Advocacy Committee of Docomomo US/Chicago, where she helps promote the preservation of modern architecture.

 

Utkarsha is passionate about mentoring the next generation of architects and journalists. In her lecture, “Architecture Journalism and the Role of Media in Architecture,” she guides architecture students transitioning into journalism, helping them navigate the evolving relationship between media and the built environment.