Detail of the project ed. 2016

parish-church-of-san­­ta-mon­i­­ca-rivas-vaci­a­­madrid / Vicens+Ramos

Design­er	Igna­cio Vicens
Loca­tion	Calle Lib­er­tad 17, 28523 Rivas-Vaci­a­­madrid, Madrid
Design Team	Igna­cio Vicens y José Anto­nio Ramos
Year	2008
Pho­to credits	Pablo Vicens

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The Church of San­ta Mon­i­ca at Rivas Vacia­madrid is locat­ed in a lon­gi­tu­di­nal plot of a new­ly estab­lished res­i­den­tial area and although the church has been the last work of the area, it was the first to be designed. The church need­ed to have a lon­gi­tu­di­nal scheme because it had to occu­py the max­i­mum plot and capac­i­ty; it also required a direc­tion­al pat­tern even if it was not the most litur­gi­cal­ly desired. The pro­gram besides need­ing a parish church, it was also con­sid­ered nec­es­sary to have areas for man­age­ment and cat­e­ch­esis and two hous­ing projects for priests.
All the ear­ly con­di­tions giv­en allowed for the emer­gence of the main idea and bring forth answers to all ques­tions asked; turn­ing lim­i­ta­tions into great opportunities.

The shape of the scheme deter­mined the plans per­for­mance by allow­ing the work to be born from the edge, from point zero and along its bor­der ends in an explo­sion of north-fac­ing sky­lights. The sonorous piece shows a clear and cat­e­gor­i­cal unique­ness of the build­ing appro­pri­ate for the sub­ject of holi­ness; to meet the light in where its essence is lacked of. As a result the re-inter­pre­­ta­­tion of the his­to­ry of long altar­pieces is now to search ways in which to unite earth and sky, mat­ter and light, the sum­mit of the sacred. The trap formed by the sky­lights is lights spe­cial gift giv­en to mat­ter, so when both come into con­tact, mat­ter infi­nite­ly dis­ap­pears. In the encounter, the lim­it, the bor­der is blurred by elim­i­nat­ing mat­ters exis­tence and it becom­ing too light.
This box of light is dis­closed at the sacrum meet­ing, which is stored in a flake-cut steel skin so unique that express­es the art worn with the pas­sage of time. 

The sacred space desires of sacred art to fill the room, so all the sculp­tures and litur­gi­cal fur­nish­ings were designed and cre­at­ed by con­tem­po­rary artists such as José Luis Sánchez, Javier Viv­er, José Manuel Ciri­no, Fer­nan­do Pago­la, Javier Mar­tinez and Jose Anto­nio Ramos.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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