Modern Church Architecture

Hey peepo i'm back! Today I'm going to talk about Modern Church Architecture since I've already mentioned about Early Church Architecture last week. As the world's architecture is rising with remarkable speed, Church Architecture has been influenced by the most recent architecture techniques which allow variation in style and size, or the use of other materials such as steel, concrete, glass and so on. Modern Church Architecture often focus more on the simple but basic ceremonial and liturgical requirements in the building (Smith, 2016). In the contrary, Early Church Architecture paid attention on the interior which was always lavishly decorated with stunning marbles and mosaic.

The apparent reduction of statuary,painting and traditional icons of Christianity can be seen in modern churches today. ''Sacred spaces are slowly moving out of the intricate baroque and Gothic details of traditional church architecture and into cleaner, brighter, more minimalist designs'' (Rogers, 2011). In my opinion, as I've mentioned in the previous post visualization is very important. How an architect designs a Church directly influences the Church's self-image. Symbolism is crucially important for a Church to communicate the liturgy that tell of how the sacraments take place. Though it's pretty much odd to remain the Gothic-looking or details of early Church these days, it's still important to concern Christianity's fundamental tradition identities for example choose wisely and preserve some of the iconic stuff that's passed down by our ancestors.

Lougesen ( 2013) mentioned that ''In Catholic Church Architecture, Tradition Shouldn’t Be Ignored'' (Lougesen, 2013). Which is indeed true. What's the purpose of having an ordinary building as a ''Church'' without all its symbolic icons and stuff? The lack of integration between Christianity and Architecture in this modern era is not a good sign. In my opinion, religion is always related to tradition, therefore, preserving tradition is significant. Churches should be ornamented and highly symbolic as it's a place for its believer to worship God and teeming with sincerity and spiritual feeling. By looking at the cross one will be instantly reminded by the crucifixion of Jesus as said by one of my Christian friends, Alicia. She gave her opinion on this topic which she thought that symbolic icons of Christianity are what make a church,a church. Outsiders or its believer should be able to tell if it's a church or not by simply a glance.

Now, in case you got bored out by words HEHE, I'm going to show you some of the examples of Modern Church Architecture .

Exterior of Foligno Concrete Church by Fuksas, Italy

(Church-Cube made of concrete, n.d.)

Interior of Foligno Concrete Church

(La Chiesa di San Paolo Apostolo by Giuseppe Peppoloni on 500px, n.d.)

Exterior of Paris Church of Santa Monica-Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Spain

(Santa Monica Church. Rivas-Urbanizaciones, designed by Vicens & Ramos. Madrid, n.d.)

Interior of Paris Church of Santa Monica

(Parish Church of Santa Monica, n.d.)

Exterior of Sunset Chapel - Acapulco, Mexico

 (Sunset Chapel Acapulco, n.d.)

Interior of Sunset Chapel - Acapulco, Mexico

(Sunset Chapel, n.d.)

That's all for today! See you guys soon, xoxo.

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References :

Rogers, S. (2011). Modern Religion: 13 Contemporary Churches & Chapels. [online] WebUrbanist. Available at: http://weburbanist.com/2011/12/16/modern-religion-13-contemporary-churches-chapels/ [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Smith, R. (2016). The Institute for Sacred Architecture | Articles| Don’t Blame Vatican II. [online] Sacredarchitecture.org. Available at: http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/dont_blame_vatican_ii [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Image Sources :

Church-Cube made of concrete. (n.d.). [image] Available at: http://architecture.mapolismagazin.com/sites/default/files/c_moreno_maggi_st_paolo_fuksas_011.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

La Chiesa di San Paolo Apostolo by Giuseppe Peppoloni on 500px. (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ff/96/56/ff9656f1663b5cacc8f5e7ec1205d9f0.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Parish Church of Santa Monica. (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://karmatrendz.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/parish_church_santa_monica_17.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Santa Monica Church. Rivas-Urbanizaciones, designed by Vicens & Ramos. Madrid. (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cf/a5/a9/cfa5a9a246cc5f8d39f01fbd458bf58f.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Sunset Chapel. (n.d.). [image] Available at: http://www.archello.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/media_image/ASC1697.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].

Sunset Chapel Acapulco. (n.d.). [image] Available at: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/acapulco-chapel-mexico-1.jpg [Accessed 31 May. 2016].