From Sacred Space to Therapeutic Sanctuary: The Norwegian Seamen’s Church Finds New Purpose as Spyre Center

On a corner lot in New Orleans' Lower Garden District, where Greek Revival townhouses and eclectic Victorians dominate the streetscape, stands a quietly welcoming religious complex. The Norwegian Seamen's Church, completed in 1968, represents a stylistic anomaly: an early transitional example of postmodernism, created not in ironic contrast to Modernism, but rather a synthesis of Norwegian vernacular with modern materials and structure.

At its height, the Norwegian Seamen’s Church consisted of 31 churches across the globe, serving as a home away from home for over 900,000 seafaring and expatriate Norwegians. By 2016, however, the congregation had dwindled and the building faced an uncertain future. The Norwegian government and the Church of Norway changed the funding model that supported the Norwegian Church Abroad as a result of disestablishment in 2017, and the long-declining numbers of Norwegian seafarers. Today, as Spyre Center, the building has found new life through adaptive reuse for a contemporary audience seeking a holistic health community rather than organized religion. 

When the Norwegian government ceased supporting the church financially in 2016, the remaining members of the local congregation attempted to reinvent the church’s identity. They rebranded as the Scandinavian Jazz Church to embrace a broader Nordic identity and capitalize on the church’s unique role in New Orleans’ storied music history. Beginning in the 1970s, the church began holding ‘jazzkirken’ concerts and events, with regular performances by local jazz legends. The Norwegian Seamen's Church became one of the city’s most unlikely performance venues and a crucial node of international cultural exchange, with Norwegian musicians travelling to New Orleans to perform at the famed Jazz & Heritage Festival and New Orleanian musicians travelling to Norway to serve as grand marshals at the then-burgeoning Molde Jazz Festival, now one of Europe’s oldest festivals of its kind. Unfortunately, the Scandinavian Jazz Church was financially unsustainable. The last service was held in 2018.

In late 2018, news spread that the church was closing and was slated to be sold to an undisclosed buyer. Rumors circulated that the buyer intended to demolish the church as the permissible zoning and value of land made the cost of renovation unattractive relative to new construction. Because the church was also a temporal outlier in the Lower Garden District’s period of significance (1850-1940), rehabilitation tax incentives were not available. The city’s Historic Districts and Landmarks Commission took the first step to preserve the building, quickly assembling a local landmark designation report that argued to protect the building on the basis of architectural and cultural significance. The Commission granted landmark status, ensuring that a developer could not raze the building without review. 

As redevelopment discussions garnered public attention, a neighbor, Felicity Property, took an interest in the church. The real estate company was housed just across the street in an 1850s brick building with wrought iron galleries that was typical of Lower Garden District. Felicity had extensive experience both in redeveloping New Orleans’ historic buildings and completing new construction in urban infill lots. Founded by Tom Winingder, it was his three daughters that had the vision and drive to imagine the future of the church complex. Diana Fisher, Deborah Peters, and Kendall Winingder saw the potential to create a community-focused holistic health collective.  Fisher had been diagnosed with breast cancer several years earlier at the young age of 34. She embarked on a healthcare odyssey, coordinating acupuncture, physical therapy, and meditation alongside conventional treatments provided by her oncologists. The fragmentation of care revealed a need in the local market: a healing space that could integrate the treatment of mind and body under one roof. Each sister brought a unique skillset to the table to realize the vision. Fisher had previously cofounded Tibetan House, a meditation and cultural center. Peters was the owner of a film equipment rental company and brought business acumen to the team. Winingder possessed years of experience working closely with development teams at the family business, where she served as creative director and in-house designer.

With Felicity Property’s expertise and backing, the sisters purchased the property and embarked on the renovation efforts. Inspections of the building and systems quickly made it clear that tax credits would be necessary to make the renovation financially viable. Because the church was outside the district’s period of significance, an individual listing nomination would be the path forward. Initial meetings with local and state officials proved supportive of the endeavor. Original construction documents were available and showed that the building was unchanged except for a slight modification to a rear interior staircase, retaining a high level of integrity.

The church had a story worth saving. Designed by first-generation New Orleanian and civil engineer Nils Erling Hansen, the building exhibits early characteristics of postmodernism through its incorporation of traditional Norwegian vernacular forms. During our interview, Hansen noted that his intention was to create a modern structure that incorporated architectural and ornamental elements of traditional Norwegian vernacular. These intentional references to vernacular forms inadvertently led to the creation of an early transitional example of postmodern architecture. A civil engineer rather than an architect by training, Hansen was unbound by Modernist ideals such as eschewing vernacular forms and instead sought to create a church that inspired an emotional connection for its intended users, evoking their homeland through the associative power of his architectural and decorative forms.  

Hansen drew inspiration from classic Norwegian churches, traveling back to Norway each year to visit family and research religious architecture, from the historic stave churches nestled in the mountains to the newly constructed churches on the coast. Both he and the voting members of the congregation agreed that a modern complex exhibiting Norwegian architectural traditions was the most appropriate style to meet the needs of the local community while also catering to homesick Norwegian seamen. The plan of the chapel closely follows a traditional Lutheran langkirke plan with a recessed chancel flanked by an organ room and sacristy. The structural system of laminated timber arches and splined roof deck both relates to Nordic traditions of timber post-and-lintel construction and honest expression of structure. The massing proves equally thoughtful, orchestrating the experience of compression and release. One arrives via an exterior vestibule and proceeds into the low-slung meeting room before entering a space defined by the soaring 18:12 pitch of the chapel’s roof--certainly more at home in a snowy landscape of Norway than a subtropical Louisiana swamp. From the exterior, the assemblage of chapel, meeting room, and two-story wing references a varangerhus, a rural Norwegian farmhouse-and-barn typology of assembled volumes that correspond to varying uses. Though completed in 1968, the church was graced with a visit by King Olav V of Norway to dedicate the building and lay the cornerstone in 1971.

Transforming the complex’s program from church to health collective was a relatively straightforward task. The Spyre Center includes community areas of lobby, lecture hall, café, sauna, pool, gym, and offices for health professionals. The community spaces either already existed in the original church or were easily accommodated. The former chapel, now the ‘Nave,’ remains a congregant space used for group classes or lectures and presentations open to the public, while the former meeting room functions as the lobby and heart of the complex. The two-story wing that originally included offices and residences for visiting seafarers was renovated into office suites leased to doctors and practitioners aligned with the mission of holistic wellness.

While meeting the objective programmatic needs for the project might have been a simple task, bringing a new architectural identity that respected and highlighted the valuable historic features proved more challenging. Subtle but deliberate design moves created cohesion throughout the complex and linked the architecture to the new identity of the health collective. The most significant intervention occurred in the former chapel and meeting room. To transform the chapel from a religious space to a secular space, liturgical lighting was stripped away in favor of a single quartz-crystal chandelier, reinforced with cove uplighting. The meeting room was similarly transformed by replacing liturgical pendant lighting. An existing operable partition between the chapel and meeting room was enlarged and replaced with a modern unit, ensuring overflow capacity for community events. To foster a stronger sense of connection between the interior lobby and the exterior courtyard as well as visibility to practitioners’ offices in the building wings, punched storefront openings were removed and replaced with more expansive frameless glass, further revealing the timber structure from the outside while increasing daylight and views to the garden from within. The existing materiality of exposed wood, buff-colored brick, and unfinished aluminum was an obvious design palette for a complex promoting healing and wellness.  

At a time and in a country where countless historically significant religious properties face uncertain futures, Spyre Center offers a hopeful template for adaptive reuse that can honor a church’s essential character while serving contemporary community needs. The Norwegian Seamen’s Church was purpose-built to provide sanctuary. As Spyre Center, it still does.

About the Authors

Authors Megan Bell and Lindsay Butler are cofounders of Bell Butler Design and Architecture in New Orleans, Louisiana which led the renovation of Spyre Center and prepared the National Register listing nomination. The practice is known for contextual new construction, adaptive reuse, and immersive interior spaces. Additional team members from Bell Butler include Alyce Deshotels for project design and Michael Bailey for the nomination. Spyre was awarded the 2022 Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation from the Louisiana Landmarks Society and the 2025 AIA New Orleans Adaptive Reuse Honor Award.

Megan Bell

Megan studied architecture at Tulane University, and her thesis year was interrupted by Hurricane Katrina; an event that helped solidify her commitment to the city, rebuilding efforts, and ensuring the architectural legacy of New Orleans continues. Megan is a licensed architect and enjoys the challenges of design from programming and feasibility to creating details that work and ensuring their proper execution. She has a particular knack for historic envelope details thanks to her many years of experience working on adaptive reuse projects throughout the city. Her interests include all things mid-century modern, and she scours estate sales always on the hunt for Danish and American furniture or Blue Heaven Atomic pieces to add to her collection. Megan serves as Treasurer of Docomomo US/Louisiana – Gulf South and has taught Professional Practice at Tulane. 

Lindsay Butler

An Alabama native, Lindsay studied architecture at Auburn University and the famed Rural Studio. Post-graduation, she joined Rural Studio’s faculty teaching an architectural watercolor class to undergraduates, studying and rendering west Alabama’s historic buildings in the Beaux Arts tradition. She moved abroad to Cairo, Egypt for a change of pace prior to settling down back home in the south. Lindsay is a licensed architect in several states, and enjoys the challenges of working in diverse geographical areas with varied histories and contexts. Her interests include architectural photography, and she has a particular affinity for underappreciated regional Brutalism.  She serves on the board of AIA Louisiana.