Detail of the project ed. 2016

don-bosco-church-in-mar­i­­bor / dans arhitekti

Design­er	Vlat­ka Ljubanovic
Loca­tion	2000 Mari­bor, Engelso­va uli­ca 66
Design Team	Dans arhitek­ti: Rok Bogataj, Miha Deš­man, Eva Fišer Berlot, Vlat­ka Ljubanović, Kata­ri­na Pirk­ma­jer Dešman
Year	2015
Pho­to credits	Miran Kam­bic Lan­guso­va uli­ca 64 4240 Radovljica phone: +38641514742

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The Don Bosco Church is part of a new parish cen­tre under the Pohor­je Mas­sif. The Reli­gious Com­plex is designed as a closed build­ing island. The build­ing itself is a clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed rec­tan­gu­lar archi­tec­tur­al mass with an intro­vert­ed cen­tral court­yard with the nave and the bell tow­er ris­ing above it.
Upon enter­ing the con­tem­pla­tive court­yard adorned by an old lin­den tree the church sud­den­ly becomes vis­i­ble across the por­ti­co. At a glance one can feel the extent of the nave from the ground over the roof of the low­er part of the com­plex all the way to the cor­nice that rep­re­sents a crown.
The nave is the place for intro­vert­ed con­tem­pla­tion there­fore the only view out is towards the sky. The most sacred place is thus marked by an intense expe­ri­ence of light.
Vivid nat­ur­al light emit­ting from the round sky­light inter­feres with dif­fused light of the nave. More soft nat­ur­al light is com­ing from behind the pres­bytery and the rear choir. This sim­ple yet so com­plex design allows the build­ing to tran­scend its phys­i­cal pres­ence, becom­ing a mere con­tain­er of light.
The oval perime­ter of the nave fea­tures hor­i­zon­tal lat­er­al recess­es, which house the chapel with the taber­na­cle, entrance to the sac­risty, con­fes­sion­als, side and rear choirs and a place for com­mu­nion prayers. These open­ings induce a feel­ing of peace­ful rota­tion around the cen­tral oculus.
The church seats 300 peo­ple on wood­en bench­es, the floor is cov­ered mas­sive oak wood floor while 100 hand­made clay lamps form the hori­zon above.
Taber­na­cle is a trip­tych with out­er wings veil­ing the cen­tral cab­i­net. It opens in two sequen­tial steps: when the wings are closed, they reveal a float­ing gold rec­tan­gle. Upon open­ing the two side wings the inte­ri­or with the mys­te­ri­ous light source – the eter­nal light — is revealed. The inner taber­na­cle is adorned with a pre­cious icon – for­mer taber­na­cle doors from the Basil­i­ca of Our Lady Help of Chris­tians, in Turin, which was built by John Bosco.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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