October 2007 Archives

A JOURNEY TOWARDS  

1.  A r c h I t e c t u r a l   c o n c e p t

Architecture should be about the perception and the experience of space, because only architecture is able to create space, manipulate space and transform space in the very objective of its experience through perception.

This ability of control over spatial arrangement to produce certain sensations and experiences is what interest me. The construction of spaces, the correlation or separation of spaces, the hierarchy of spaces, the spatial sequence through circulation in space, are many techniques to achieve architectural “events”. By “event” I mean this very moment when architecture produces sensations. Light, sound, smell and touch (and maybe taste) are sub-elements external or internal to the space, which must equally be considered and manipulated as tools towards enhancing a specific spatial aim.

Architecture and thus space only fully performs and gets fully functional when sensational experiences are created from it. So called architecture that only follow structural and predefined rules should not be seen as architecture but as mere constructions. Like the critic Charles Blanc said: “Architects should design spaces for people to live in, not only for magazine to take pictures of and for developers to market them.” Architecture like art has the ability to produce sensations, and architecture unlike art has more means (its scale, its structure…) to achieve this goal.

2.  A r c h I t e c t u r a l   I c o n

 This aspect of architecture as sensational experiences is even more fundamental in the context of Iconic spaces like churches, in which a spatial impact is almost “expected” by the visitor. Architecture and church architecture can only be seen as “iconic” if they meet architectural expectations not only in their forms, but in the performance of their forms: in the ability through the form to create “architectural events”. As the nineteenth-century church architect, Augustus Welby Pugin, said “religious buildings are external and visible symbols of the faith of a community.”(Building type Basics for “places of Worship” by Nicolas W. Roberts, p.1). In other words Architecture does not become Iconic only though of a recognisable “iconic” shape or identity, but equally through its spatial performance in communicating a community’s faith. Worship places should stand as land marks for years to come, they should play a central role in the life of the community, through their form and performance. Thus, iconic is about a concept that architecture materialises and concretises in its form and performance. The concept in this project, should I remind it, being that “iconic” or “symbolic” architecture has the power to trigger sensations and emotions. “A symbol may have the power to touch us at a depth that a wordy exposition does not.” (“how to read a church” by Richard Taylor p.3)

If the architectural aim of this project is for architecture to allow sensorial experience, how does this translate into the design of a church? What main sensorial experience needs to be created through spatial manipulation for the church to perform?

The primary goal of any church is to create the sensation of getting closer to God. Respect and reverence are the feelings one should feel in the house of God, in the presence of God. Churches are emblematic of heaven on earth. The spiritual power is the essence of a church.

The form and spatial investigation into the church should aim towards this essential concept.

“Since earliest times, places of worship were used to show reverence to a supernatural or divine power. This worship spaces, as Mircea Eliade says, breaks in the homogeneity of the profane world, where believers make contact with the divine. “Here in the scared enclosure, communication with the gods is made possible” (Eliade, 1987, p.26)

HOW CAN WE MANIPULATE SPACE TO CREATE THE SENSATION OF RESPECT AND REVERENCE SYMBOLIC TO THE IDEA OF CONTACT WITH GOD?

Is the project’s main criterion.

3.  M e d I e v a l   C h u r c h   a r c h I t e c t u r e

In Medieval time, the architectural tools to capture the feeling presence with God, was formally translated through two main spatial characteristic:

-          the sequential hierarchy of space

Places of worship are arranged into spaces with increasing degrees of holiness. Churches too contain these degrees of sanctity, of spaces separated within spaces. Starting with the Nave where to congregation takes part in the service, followed by the Chancel in which are located the choir stalls, followed by the sanctuary within which is found the Altar, and finishes with the space for the Tabernacle, in which the bread representing god’s flesh is kept. These spaces are usually not physically separated but conceptually by a small step, a screen, an arch, or change of spatial furniture’s arrangement.

-          the “Grander” of the Space

The Majestic scale both external and internal of the Church was used to represent God’s powerful presence, so that one would think when entering it: “this is the house of God!”

The aim is to translate these two medieval architectural decisions into contemporary language.

4.  C o n t e m p o r a r y   I c o n I c   c h u r c h   a r c h I t e c t u r e

 - The sequential hierarchy of space from the outside environment, to the most inner core of the Church (the Altar) will be replaced by a transitional space, separating the modern city from the sacred space of meditation and worship.

It seems we only fully appreciate and respect things when we have to struggle for them. The passage from the loud and chaotic city to the “entrails” of God’s house is too fast and too accessible, for the inside space experience, and contact with God, to be powerful. Especially within the context of globalisation and high tourism, churches have become touristic attractions with which respect for the sacred character of the space has changed. God’s house gets violated by the easy intrusion of people entering the space. The Church should be a space disconnected from the material world to allow a more profound contact with the spiritual world.

In the aim to restore a level of respect and to disconnect the spiritual world from the material world, an intermediate space between the city and “the house of God” is installed. This space of transition will act as a preparation to leave the material world into the spiritual world. It will act as a symbolic pilgrimage in order to clean your soul, before entering the heavenly. The hierarchy of space is here realised not through visual distinction but through emotional stages, from confusion to clearness, from dark to bright, from restricted to vast.

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that represents a journey to our own centre and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience.
The unseen patterns of a labyrinth are referred to as sacred geometry. They supposedly reveal the presence of a cosmic order as they interface the world of material form and the subtler realm of higher consciousness.
On the journey in, towards the centre, one cleanses the dirt from the road.
On the journey out, one is born anew to consciously dwell in a human body, made holy by having got taste of the Infinite Centre.   In the middle Ages, people believed that if you walked the labyrinth with the full dedication of a pilgrim, you would be transformed, the old you will be grounded at the threshold stone a purified you emerging, ready to tackle new directions in your life's journey.

The labyrinths were usually placed near the entrance at west end of the nave, beside the baptismal font at the foot of church. This location symbolises our first steps on the spiritual journey.

The experience of space happens meanly through visual perception and/or mental perception. Most people experience space in sequence, from space to space, one by one. It is only at the end of their journey through space that they are able to perceive space as a whole, as an entity and not as an individual fragments. What if perception of space as a whole comes to be disturbed? What if as oppose to Le Corbusier’s vision of space, you don’t always see where you came from? And sense of space is lost. This spatial manipulation provokes emotions to the visitor and reveals his vulnerable nature.

The ritual of approach and purification define the worship spaces.

The scale of the building elements in relation to human body differentiates the building from the everyday, the scale of the interior spaces, the size and weight of exposed structural columns and beams all serve to denote and equally define the special quality of the worship space.

The eyes are attracted towards the above, the ceiling where most of the building’s detailed work is taking place. The ceiling should represent the sky and heaven above.

- The Church’s majestic character will be expressed not only in the scale of the communal space of worship, but also by allowing contact with natural phenomenon that would take part in the meditations.

“Which environment do you feel most in presence of God?” The answer seems almost evident: in a church, the house of God. But when asking this question to people, they don’t always answer the expected responds, instead they would say: “I feel closest to God in contact with nature and Natural powers”. Richard Taylor wrote in his book “how the read a church”: “[churches] it is often said that we could, or even should do within them. God is in the fields and in the woods, in the earth and in the wind, and is not contained within four walls. Many people feel closer to God on a walk in the park than in a building on a Sunday morning.” (“how to read a church” by Richard Taylor p.4)

Natural phenomenons have always been understood as the expression of God. It is through nature that the presence of God is to be believed. By allowing natural phenomenons inside the church the experience of contact with God will be increased.

The Core of the church will consist of a vast open space overlooking God’s work of art: nature. The church will become a place of contemplation and meditation, a theatre for natural performance, for God’s expression.

“A luminous spatial experience and the rays of sunlight serve as a mystical metaphor of the presence of God... People in the atrium are enveloped with mystical light […] Taking part in a prayer, you feel like celebrating in the presence of God”

This opposition between the two characters of the spaces constituted my interest.

The one small, dark, disorientating, on the verge of discomfort, the other large open bright and reassuring.

PROGRAMMATIC criteria:

1. religious centre
2. urban catalysts

Not just a church but a community centre, to be used for personal meditation and communal worship, of coming together.

FORMAL criteria

(Scale, shape, position, direction)

1/space of transition

The square is symbol for the earth, a solid unmovable form as earth was perceived to be

The transitional space is used to express the person’s will to be spiritually clean before entering the church building.

2/space worship

The circle was considered by ancient Greeks to be the perfect shape, eternal without beginning or end. A perfect balanced whole and therefore a symbol of eternity and divinity of God.