Detail of the project ed. 2020

BLANKPAGE ARCHI­TECTS – SAINT CHAR­BEL CHURCH

Design­er	Walid Ghan­tous
Loca­tion	Zakrit, Lebanon
Design Team	BLANKPAGE Archi­tects
Year	2018
Pho­to credits	Karam Mor­cos, Majd Achi

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Locat­ed in a site steeped in his­to­ry, the chal­lenge con­sist­ed of imple­ment­ing a new larg­er church with­out over­shad­ow­ing the small­er 18th cen­tu­ry chapel with its lime­stone vault structure.

Rec­og­niz­ing the his­tor­i­cal val­ue and promi­nence of its neigh­bor, the new church humbly adopts a low pro­file at the entrance which grad­u­al­ly ris­es as it reach­es the altar wall. It simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­sti­tutes a back­drop and an exter­nal amphithe­ater which high­lights and inte­grates the old edi­fice with­in the rit­u­als of the sacred ceremonies.

With its inte­ri­or height rang­ing from 3m to 10m, the church enables a tran­scen­den­tal spa­tial expe­ri­ence that is fur­ther enhanced by a large sky­light locat­ed at the apex where a sun­set light of var­i­ous inten­si­ty wash­es the rear wall above the altar and cre­ates the atmos­phere of the church.

A cross is carved into this large wall as a neg­a­tive imprint that opens the church to the light of the ris­ing sun in the east.

The roof of the church, an out­door amphithe­ater cas­cad­ing down towards the his­tor­i­cal edi­fice, is sus­pend­ed between two mono­lith­ic fair faced con­crete skele­ton, punc­tu­at­ed by two big olive trees, ready to be cov­ered with lay­ers of green climbers.

Ris­ing inde­pen­dent­ly in the mid­dle of the court, a steel bell tow­er exhibits itself between the con­crete struc­ture and the lime­stone chapel with a bell insert­ed with­in the cen­ter of the cross.

Above every­thing else, the old chapel remains the pro­tag­o­nist that defines the new church.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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