The interior hosts a mural by Candido Portinari, and the exterior features a landscape designed by Roberto Burle Marx.

For 14 years, the ecclesiastical authorities—led by Antonio dos Santos Cabral, the Archbishop of Belo Horizonte—prohibited the chapel from providing Catholic services.

Niemeyer said that he was inspired by the French poet Paul Claudel's statement: "A church is God's hangar on earth", but Time magazine wrote that the Archbishop of Belo Horizonte, Antonio dos Santos Cabral, saw it as "the devil's bomb shelter".

[4] Archbishop Cabral opposed both its unorthodox architectural and artistic forms, particularly the mural behind the altar of St. Francis with a dog depicting a wolf, painted by Candido Portinari.

With this project, Niemeyer started what would become the guiding principle of his later works: an architecture dominated by the plasticity of reinforced concrete in bold, unconventional, striking forms.

The exterior walls are covered in pastel ceramic tiles in shades of light blue and white, forming abstract designs.