Detail of the project ed. 2020

SPARA­NO MOONEY – SAINT JOSEPH THE WORK­ER CHURCH

Design­er John Spara­no
Loca­tion 7405 S Red­wood Rd, West Jor­dan, UT 84084
Design Team

Spara­no + Mooney Archi­tec­ture (John Spara­no, Anne Mooney, Seth Striefel)
Year 2013
Pho­to credits

1. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Exte­ri­or. 1_Exterior
2. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Exte­ri­or, Bell Tow­er. 2_Exterior
3. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Exte­ri­or. 3_Exterior
4. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, Main Sanc­tu­ary Entrance. 4_Exterior
5. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, Day Chapel Entrance and Court­yard. 5_Exterior
6. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Main Sanc­tu­ary. 1_Interior
7. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Main Sanc­tu­ary. 2_Interior
8. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Main Sanc­tu­ary and Bap­tismal Font. 3_Interior
9. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, St. Joseph the Work­er Chapel of the Sacred Heart. 4_Interior
10. Jere­my Bit­ter­mann, Day Chapel Inte­ri­or. 5_Interior

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The project is locat­ed in a work­ing class res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood near the Bing­ham Canyon Cop­per Mine, the deep­est open pit mine in the world, and major employ­er in the area. Named for the patron saint of labor­ers, this parish church has a rich his­to­ry and cul­tur­al lin­eage based in the prac­tice of con­struc­tion trades and craft. Draw­ing from this, a palette of mate­ri­als was select­ed that expresss the trans­for­ma­tion of the raw mate­r­i­al by the work­er, reveal­ing the craft of con­struc­tion. These mate­ri­als includ­ed walls of board-formed con­crete, con­struct­ed in the tra­di­tion­al method of stack­ing rough sawn tim­bers; a rain­screen of clear milled cedar; ver­ti­cal grain fir tim­bers used to cre­ate the altar rere­dos and inte­ri­or of the Day Chapel; bent cop­per pan­els used as the cladding for the Day Chapel and sky­light struc­ture over the altar; and glaz­ing com­po­nents requir­ing a high­ly craft­ed assem­bly includ­ing lam­i­nat­ed glaz­ing with col­or inter-lay­ers, acid etched glaz­ing with reli­gious motifs, and clear glass insu­lat­ed units with mul­lion­less corners.
The con­cep­tu­al basis for this project emerged as a reflec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, each mem­ber of the church con­tributes to the whole. In this way a myr­i­ad of indi­vid­u­al­ly craft­ed parts was brought togeth­er into a cohe­sive enti­ty, pro­vid­ing dia­logue between the indi­vid­ual and the col­lec­tive. The form of the sanc­tu­ary is based on the ellip­ti­cal shape that typ­i­cal­ly occurs when a group of indi­vid­u­als inter­act. The sanc­tu­ary geom­e­try is com­posed of two off­set ellipses of which the out­er ellipse con­tains the litur­gi­cal chapels and nich­es, and the inner ellipse com­pletes the main sanc­tu­ary space. The off­set ellipses give the sense that the out­er walls of the sanc­tu­ary are thick­ened (as much as 10’ at the fur­thest sep­a­ra­tion), ref­er­enc­ing the unin­hab­it­able poche wall — a rich his­tor­i­cal prece­dent in sacred archi­tec­ture — now ren­dered hab­it­able for litur­gi­cal func­tions. The depth of the walls is most vis­i­ble via a series of col­ored aper­tures that extend through the thick­ened wall. Because of these aper­tures, the space changes through­out the day with the col­or of the aper­tures grow­ing more intense when high­light­ed by the sun: col­ored light wash­es the space, reflect­ing on the floor and walls, and the col­or dim­ming as night falls. The thick­ened walls and aper­tures act as medi­a­tion between the sacred and secular.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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