Detail of the project ed. 2020

INUCE • DIRK U. MOENCH – ANGLI­CAN CHURCH

Design­er Dirk U. Moench
Loca­tion Luoyuan Coun­ty, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province
Design Team

Project Archi­tect: Dirk U. Moench
Project Team: Yuan­quan Gao, Jason Cheng, Sisi Zeng
Year 2019
Pho­to credits

All pho­tos cred­it­ed to: INUCE — Shikai

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

LUOYUAN ANGLI­CAN CHURCH – A Fam­i­ly Church in a Chang­ing Rur­al China
Luoyuan Coun­ty, Chi­na, 2011 — 2019

THE BAT­TLE­ZONE BETWEEN CITY AND COUNTRYSIDE
Luoyuan is a coun­­ty-town in Fujian, a province famous for tea ter­races, its Hak­­ka-minor­i­­ty and their dis­tinct ring-shaped archi­tec­ture, the so-called “Tulou”. Cur­rent­ly, the town is expand­ing quick­ly, replac­ing the ver­nac­u­lar set­tle­ments and with fac­to­ries and res­i­den­tial dis­tricts. Since 2011 the Angli­can Con­gre­ga­tion of Luoyuan is devot­ing its resources to build­ing a church in one of these districts. 

A LIT­TLE COM­MU­NI­TY AND ITS MISSION
Antic­i­pat­ing young fam­i­lies to live near­by, the church’s pro­gram address­es their need of a nur­tur­ing envi­ron­ment for chil­dren, offer­ing ser­vice venues for adults and chil­dren and age-spe­­cif­ic activ­i­ty areas. The project’s com­plex­i­ty lies in inte­grat­ing the mun­dane require­ments of a mixed-use build­ing with the dig­ni­fied pres­ence of a sanc­tu­ary and, on the oth­er hand, in retain­ing a degree of local authen­tic­i­ty whilst mak­ing a future-ori­en­t­ed state­ment for Fujian’s Christians. 

TRAN­SCEND­ING DES­O­LA­TION THROUGH COM­PA­NY AND SOLITUDE
Sur­round­ed by anonymi­ty, the sanc­tu­ary seeks to become a refuge from the tor­ments of a chang­ing world: Employ­ing its con­cen­tric orga­ni­za­tion around a court­yard with pavil­ion from the Tulou, it embod­ies the tra­di­tion­al com­­mu­ni­­ty-based lifestyle, retains a glimpse rur­al iden­ti­ty, and cre­ates an envi­ron­ment where believ­ers feel in com­mu­nion with their Chris­t­ian fam­i­ly. Con­verse­ly, the ser­vice hall rep­re­sents a space of seclu­sion enclosed by two lay­ers of glass exud­ing an atmos­phere of deep blue. The void between both lay­ers will be lit up trans­form­ing the church at night into a shin­ing bea­con. With 1412 sqm of sur­face, it con­sti­tutes the largest stained-glass façade in Chi­na. Although bud­getary cuts delay the final­iza­tion of land­scape and inte­ri­or, the church was con­se­crat­ed in 2019 and is in use for Sun­day services.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

BACK TO PROJECTS PAGE

 

×