Prompted by a group of active parish members and backed by the Bishop, Mons. Juan Antonio Reig-Plá, work on designs for the new building were begun in 2019. Granda Liturgical Arts provided the design work pro bono, given that the workshop and headquarters are within the parish.
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| Rendering of the main facade to the street. Granda |
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| The parish is currently housed in these prefabriated metal structures. |
The Bishop
gave succinct but very clear instructions for the design: “A church that looks
like a church”. Working firmly grounded on this principle, balancing the economic
possibilities, planning limitations etc, the design draws deeply from local
vernacular traditions.
The layout
is out of necessity of great simplicity; a single nave church with the parish
center attached to the side, which will contain a daily Chapel, sacristy,
offices and a large number of rooms to be used for religious education and the
many activities in the parish. The second floor includes two apartments for
priests and a large hall for events.
The architectural
language is deliberately humble, with simple clean lines and materials that are
familiar to locals and affordable: brick and tile. The façade of the church aims
to integrate itself into the historic image of the churches of Alcalá, a University
town strewn with convents, as well as the traditions of the Carmelite
foundations of St Theresa, the patron of the parish.
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| View from the sidewalk showing the prominence of the "espadaña" |
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| View from the park that surrounds the plot |
The main
visual focus of the building is the bell-gable or “espadaña”. Rather than a
full belltower, this solution is both less costly and a prevalent feature of
country churches all over the region. The gable rises perpendicular to the façade
so that is mostly visible from the surrounding park and the long street to
which the plot faces. The three arches which recall the Most Holy Trinity, hold
the bells, rung from choir loft below.
The portico
in front of the porch provides a space protected from sun and weather before
entering the building. Its design is directly inspired by vernacular examples
from the area. A glazed ceramic tile, “azulejos” image of Our Lady provides a
devotional outdoor space. The change of scale, from the outdoors to a lower
ceiling space that then opens into the church gives us a visual transition from
the world into the sacred.
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| Inerior rendering. |
Given the
limited budget, the interior is planned with the bare minimum, an exercise in
noble simplicity. Its design is heavily inspired by the University of Alcala’s chapel
of St Ildefonso and the disappeared Archepiscopal Palace. A simple framed
background holds a natural-scale Crucifix and the Tabernacle in the apse, while
two similar structures frame shrines for Our Lady and St Theresa on each side
of the sanctuary, and an additional one to St joseph in alcove on the side. The
biggest concession to decoration is the wooden ceiling or “artesonado”. This is
a simplified version of this style of ceilings, which originated in Spain under
Islamic rule, but continued to develop well into the renaissance. The intricate
crisscrossing of beams converges in an 8-pointed star above the altar.
While this project might seem plain to our readers in the North America, given the large number of newly built churches found there, it is quite the oddity for Spain, where Modernism and its contemporary currents are hegemonic. One only needs to see the last churches built in Madrid to realize how defiant this proposal is at its core.
