Detail of the project ed. 2024

monastery-of-the-sis­ters-of-st-fran­­cis / Poland

Design­er Józef Franc­zok
Loca­tion Koś­ciel­na 11, 46–081, Dobrzeń Wiel­ki, Poland
Nation Poland
Design Team

Józef Franc­zok, Marcin Kolanus, Mag­dale­na Tar­gosz, Artur Nitribitt
Year 2018
Pho­to credits

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

“To me, it is where the earth meets the heaven”
Nun, res­i­dent of the monastery 

Project reflects the belief, that archi­tec­ture while respond­ing to all prag­mat­ic needs affects our men­tal well-being and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Well-bal­anced space might ben­e­fits to intro­spec­tion, con­tem­pla­tion and strength­ens spir­i­tu­al and emo­tion­al life.
Despite the pros­per­i­ty, many peo­ple strug­gle nowa­days with the lack of time, fatigue, over­whelm­ment and the com­plex­i­ty of the mod­ern world. Lack of rela­tion­ships, visu­al noise and con­stant rush, dis­tract our atten­tion from what is real­ly important.
More and more often, in order to find mean­ing and our own way, we delib­er­ate­ly decide to sim­pli­fy our lives. We often seek for asy­lum in the moun­tains or the seas, to find calm and peace.
Fol­low­ing the famous “less is more” sen­tence by Mies van der Rohe, this move­ment can be large­ly sup­port­ed and enhanced by the space which sur­rounds us. It pro­vides a back­ground, peace­ful frame to con­tem­plate nature and light.
Less ele­ments and colours allow one to focus. One can con­cen­trate on his own thoughts, prayer, con­tem­pla­tion, and con­tem­plate sur­round­ing land­scape or chang­ing sea­sons. Archi­tec­ture sets a back­ground for light, which in Chris­tian­i­ty sym­bol­izes life, God and goodness.
The build­ing is filled with light. It is an instru­ment, where light plays its sym­pho­ny, fol­low­ing space accord­ing to the sea­sons and the cycle of the day. The cross casts a wan­der­ing light into the entrance lob­by. While the chapel’s win­dow and the sky­lights are con­stant­ly chang­ing room’s ambience.
Nat­ur­al mate­ri­als used in the project, such as stone, stain­less steel, glass, wood, white plas­ter and con­crete, all offers a spe­cif­ic tex­ture and absorbs light dif­fer­ent­ly. They can be seen as ever­last­ing, as while aging, they gain nobility.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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