Detail of the project ed. 2020

BEAUTELL ALE­JAN­DRO – STEL­LA MARIS CHAPEL

Design­er Ale­jan­dro Beautell
Loca­tion Avda. prin­ci­pal El Pris, 38358, Tacoro­nte, Tener­ife, Spain
Design Team

Mar­ius Micu — Junior architect
Eloy Fer­nán­dez — Quan­ti­ty surveyor
Manuel Rosa­do — Draftsman
Flavio Dor­ta — Draftsman

Year 2016
Pho­to credits

Flavio Dor­ta — Pho­to 3 Exter­nal, Pho­to 4 Exter­nal, Pho­to 3 Inter­nal, Pho­to 4 Internal
Ale­jan­dro Beautell — Pho­to 5 Exter­nal, Pho­to 2 Inter­nal, Pho­to 5 Internal
Efraín Pin­tos — Pho­to 2 Exter­nal, Pho­to 1 Internal.
José Oller — Pho­to 1 External

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

For years, the neigh­bors of the fish­er­men vil­lage of El Pris had tried to pro­mote the con­struc­tion of a prop­er tem­ple, under the voca­tion of Vir­gen del Car­men (Our Lady of Mount Carmel) who is patroness of the sailors. Despite des­ig­nat­ing for it sev­er­al dif­fer­ent loca­tions, this con­struc­tion, for var­i­ous rea­sons, was not possible.

The plot locat­ed on a rocky head­land next to the old pier, was cer­tain­ly com­pli­cat­ed due to its small size and irreg­u­lar shape. This dif­fi­cul­ty was increased by the sig­nif­i­cant slope of the base (it was not pos­si­ble to exca­vate the rock due to the dan­ger which such works could cause for adja­cent poor, self-build hous­es) as well as the restric­tions of the law and lim­it­ed eco­nom­i­cal resources.

In an area with­out archi­tec­tur­al ref­er­ences, where dom­i­nate self-build con­struc­tions, the planned build­ing aims to com­plete the façade of the hous­es erect­ed on the head­land. The chal­lenge was to inte­grate the new vol­ume with­out impos­ing it, so that the group of hous­es con­sti­tut­ing the back­ground of the chapel did not lose its character.

The chapel is designed as a sin­gle cylin­dri­cal vol­ume, diag­o­nal­ly cut in its upper part. In this way, the inte­ri­or space ris­es in height, as we approach the altar. Adja­cent to the chapel was designed a small prayer space which resem­ble a cave for the fish­er­men of the area, as well as a sac­risty. The arrange­ment of the vol­umes cre­ates open space between both con­struc­tions which forms an access patio, pro­tect­ed from the strong winds.

The altar is ori­ent­ed to the north. The altar table is locat­ed on the same lev­el as the space of the nave. A sin­gle mono­lith­ic bank, which comes from the wall, pro­vides the seats for prayers around the altar table. In the con­ti­nu­ity of the wall is incor­po­rat­ed the Via Cru­cis which is com­posed of 14 stars. The cir­cum­fer­ence that forms the floor plan of the tem­ple, rep­re­sents the fem­i­nin­i­ty of the Vir­gin Mary, the mater­nal fig­ure who embraces the faith­ful. The image of Vir­gin del Car­men pre­sides the space, being locat­ed in the north like metaphor of its func­tion of guide to the sailors dur­ing the night. The Stel­la Maris or Star of the Sea.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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