Parrocchia San Giovanni XXIII | Lorenzo Marchi

Contemporary churches do not enjoy widespread appreciation, since they are accused to conceal their role under general shapes, and believed as sharpening the identity crisis of the christian worshipper. Many of the them and ecclesiastics hold to be true the new churches are more similar to museums or stores, spaces that do not invite to the meditation, with no sacred sense. So this is the point for the experimentation to move some step back in order to reflect on the real people needs.

The research of the sacredness effect pass through the minimalism and the use of traditional stone materials, as the typical roman travertine and marble, as well as a distinct use of the light. Right in the passage between the earthly matter and the mystic light there is the innovative element that characterizes the church: a traslucent façade lies on the travertine basement; it is made up of panels composed by thin layers of glass and carrara marble. The stone highlights the value of an edifice of the past projected in the present, while the light is let free to seep in but not completely, letting space for worshipper’s imagination. In darkness it is the church to highlight itself by radiating light from inside, with the aid of an illuminating engine included in the panels that clad it in part.

The parish is completed by the typical essential elements like the spaces for pastoral care, the parish hall, the offices for the parish priest and the vicarage. Between the parish and the church the active and dynamic comunity of worshippers takes place, where different generations and realities meet each other.