Detail of the project ed. 2016

the-church-of-the-order-of-dis­­­calced-carmelites / Bee Architects

Design­er	Tudor Radulescu
Loca­tion	Snagov 077165, Romania
Design Team	Author: Archi­tect Tudor Rad­ules­cu (Bee Architects) Project Man­ag­er and Reli­gious Coor­di­na­tor: Archi­tect Andrej Ste­fan­cic (Mizar Proiect, Bucharest) Art works, stained glass­es, mosa­ic: Marko Ivan Rup­nik (Cen­tro Alet­ti, Rome) Tra­di­tion­al Wood­en Design: Archi­tect Ioan Rad­ules­cu (Bee Architects) Cus­tomer Project Man­ag­er: Engi­neer Giuseppe Sacchetti Cus­tomer Site Super­vi­sor: Father Anto­nio Prestipino
Year	2013
Pho­to credits	Archi­tect Viorel Plesca

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The Monachal Com­plex is a place of wor­ship for the monks of the Order of Dis­calced Carmelites, a con­tem­pla­tive monk order known for its aus­ter­i­ty. It has been desired to be a con­cept – inspired from the Roman­ian tra­di­tion­al archi­tec­ture but recon­sid­ered, mod­ern­ized and adapt­ed to cur­rent needs.
The aus­ter­i­ty of the order and sim­plic­i­ty of tra­di­tion­al Roman­ian archi­tec­ture fit beau­ti­ful­ly and sim­plic­i­ty does not mean the total removal of orna­ment but actu­al­ly putting it in the spot light. A black and white game of wood­en enriched facades — inspired by the craft of the mas­ter car­pen­ter. The Horse head, sym­bol of mas­tery, is the leit­mo­tif of detail in the fram­ing, where framed win­dows and con­soles impose a rhythm, where mas­sive wood­en pil­lars express strength and the shape of the roof fram­ing struc­ture relax­es you with its flow.
The tow­er, the monastery, the guest house and the church; gath­ered togeth­er give birth to the two court­yards. One for the rit­u­al, a chiostro exclu­sive­ly for the monks, the oth­er, big­ger, hav­ing a regroup­ing role for spir­i­tu­al peace and rest — right under the gen­tle lap of the church.
The whole ensem­ble wears this tra­di­tion­al tai­lored coat, not copied but inter­pret­ed, how­ev­er the church, goes even fur­ther and hides inside a unique uni­verse, a mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tion of the ancient struc­ture, a spe­cial flow of the forces. The image of the old arch gives way to the beau­ty of the wood­en struc­ture that was always hid­den in ancient times. The arch rests on 12 pil­lars, wood­en lamel­lar ribs, which cling to the walls and stride heav­i­ly on sol­id con­crete con­soles. The zebra floor, a nat­ur­al gran­ite, makes the tran­si­tion from dark­ness to light, from the pro­fane to the divine.
Pass­ing over the glass floor, which cov­ers the crypt, where the eter­nal fire reminds us where we came from and where we shall return some­day. The gate­way of the church is a mas­sive wood­en gate with bronze ele­ments and the theme of the Annunciation.
In an age of new technologies

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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