Detail of the project ed. 2016

san­­ta-maria-parish-cen­ter / Gimeno Guitart

Design­er	Daniel Gimeno
Loca­tion	Calle Ocho, 19. Bonav­ista, Tarragona.
Design Team	Daniel Gimeno Miguel Guitart
Year	2016
Pho­to credits	Pedro Pege­naute www.pedropegenaute.es

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The design of the church is artic­u­lat­ed around two main ideas:
The mon­u­ment: the church as a col­lec­tive space must be vin­di­cat­ed as an urban event with­in the city. The ver­ti­cal­li­ty of the sec­tion rein­forces the pres­ence of the church as an icon­ic reference.
The mys­tery: the church as a place for pray­ing must con­sid­er a unique sin­gu­lar space, capa­ble of con­vey­ing the idea of tran­scen­dence through light, scale, and materiality.
The church is com­ple­ment­ed with an L‑shaped neu­tral back­ground build­ing that con­tains com­ple­men­tary pro­gram, such as class­rooms, offices, or res­i­dences, among oth­ers. These soft-skinned vol­umes are locat­ed to the north and east of the site, retain­ing the urban fab­ric and free­ing the most pub­lic cor­ner of the site for the space of the church. This strate­gic orga­ni­za­tion, allows for the dis­plac­ing the free­stand­ing vol­ume of the church to the plaza. The sin­gu­lar shape of the church as well as the neu­tral back­ground that frames its vis­i­bil­i­ty and pres­ence with­in the city rein­force its char­ac­ter­is­tic mate­ri­al­i­ty and icon­ic form.
With a poly­hedric shape that alludes to min­er­al for­ma­tions, the near 20-meter high rock man­i­fests itself as a mon­u­ment with­in the urban fab­ric of the city and a sym­bol for the iden­ti­ty of the Bonav­ista neigh­bor­hood. The pres­ence of the large vol­ume is trans­lat­ed inside as a ver­ti­cal space. The rock sup­ports the nec­es­sary retreat and seclu­sion for the Catholic cer­e­mo­ny, and the zenith light­ing pro­duces a ver­ti­cal spa­tial ten­sion, con­vey­ing a weight­less and spir­i­tu­al per­cep­tion. Light, scale, and mate­ri­al­i­ty are the means to reach the expe­ri­ence of the sacred.
The design unveils an aus­tere approach where the inten­tion is the con­struc­tion of a serene and pro­found space for every­one’s use. The archi­tec­ture does not par­tic­i­pates of styl­is­tic con­cerns, but attempts to recre­ate time­less uni­ver­sal val­ues, so as every per­son, regard­less of age or back­ground, may feel embraced by the large fam­i­ly of the parish of Bonavista.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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