Det­ta­glio del pro­get­to ed. 2020

INU­CE • DIRK U. MOENCH – HUA­XIANG CHRI­STIAN CHURCH COM­MU­NI­TY CENTRE

Desi­gner Dirk U. Moench
Loca­tion Flo­wer Lane Nr. 7, Gulou District, Fuz­hou City, Fujian Pro­vin­ce, China
Desi­gn Team

Pro­ject Archi­tect: Dirk U. Moench
Pro­ject Team: Joshua Cube­ro, Yuan­quan Gao, Sisi Zeng, Lv Shenming

Anno 2019
Pho­to credits

All pho­tos cre­di­ted to “INU­CE — SHIKAI”

Foto ester­ni

Descri­zio­ne del progetto

HUA­XIANG CHRI­STIAN CEN­TRE – The Rise of China’s Urban Christians
Fuz­hou, Chi­na, 2015 — 2018

A CHRI­STIAN MINO­RI­TY IN A TYPI­CAL CHI­NE­SE CITY
Sin­ce its con­struc­tion in 1938 Hua­xiang Church beca­me wit­ness to radi­cal tran­sfor­ma­tions: From deca­des of dete­rio­ra­tion to unpre­ce­den­ted urban gro­wth; from com­ple­te sup­pres­sion of reli­gion to a ten-fold gro­wth in the num­ber of Chri­stians. Today, it finds itself in a maze of high-rises. In need for addi­tio­nal spa­ce, its con­gre­ga­tion deci­ded to build a new church with com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre func­tions adja­cent to the old monument. 

IN EYE OF THE STORM
The con­di­tions impo­sed on the pro­ject were extraor­di­na­ry: Fir­stly, the spa­tial requi­re­men­ts con­flic­ted with the heritage-authority’s height and GFA restric­tions. Second­ly, the site’s iso­la­ted cha­rac­ter — enclo­sed by an uncom­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve set of buil­dings high and low, modern and tra­di­tio­nal, Eastern and Western — deman­ded an inno­va­ti­ve approach regar­ding the rela­tion­ship to the surrounding. 

EXPRES­SING A COMMUNITY’S CHAN­GED SELF — PERCEPTION
Our desi­gn har­mo­ni­zes such imba­lan­ces by adop­ting the role of a “media­tor”: Sub­tly fol­ding its con­tours the volu­me is visual­ly sca­led down into frag­men­ts, allo­wing it to rela­te in pro­por­tion and silhouet­te to church and sur­roun­ding, thus evo­king the impres­sion of orga­ni­cal­ly gro­wn sky­li­nes. The faça­de is fini­shed in a tra­di­tio­nal peb­­ble-dash tech­ni­que — a coun­ter­sta­te­ment to the cur­­tain-walls encir­cling it. The roofs are con­cei­ved as ele­va­ted amphi­thea­tres for open-air ser­vi­ces and have beco­me popu­lar sce­nic spo­ts also to the public, offe­ring unob­struc­ted views onto the old town. The com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre the­re­fo­re embo­dies a chan­ge in the congregation’s self-per­­ce­p­­tion, from a pro­tec­ti­ve mino­ri­ty that hid in seclu­sion, to a com­mu­ni­ty that now wan­ts to reach out and invi­te to join.

Rela­zio­ne illu­stra­ti­va del progetto
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Foto inter­ni

Dise­gni tecnici

TOR­NA ALLA PAGI­NA DEI PROGETTI