Detail of the project ed. 2024

ances­­tral-church-of-fra­iao / Portugal

Design­er	Nuno Capa
Loca­tion	Rua da Igre­ja 4715–213 — Braga
Nation	Por­tu­gal
Design Team	Nuno Fer­reira Capa — Arqui­tec­tura e Design
Year	2021
Pho­to credits	Attilio Fiu­marel­la

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The Ances­tral Church of Fraião (Bra­­ga-Por­­tu­­gal) is an inter­ven­tion of analy­sis on the degra­da­tion state of the lat­est inter­ven­tions car­ried out in the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry; and the deci­sion to reveal its orig­i­nal fea­tures by remov­ing the degrad­ed inner and out­er paint­ed cement mor­tar coatings.
The scarce infor­ma­tion about the for­mer con­struc­tion drove to the com­mit­ment to unveil its essence and the inter­ven­tions pre­vi­ous­ly car­ried out.
The design plan is a sim­ple spa­tial orga­ni­za­tion com­posed of two rec­tan­gles with slight­ly dif­fer­ent dimen­sions –nave and main church- and an arch­way pas­sage dis­closed with the removal of mor­tar layers.
This sin­gle orga­ni­za­tion is revealed in its vol­ume­try: the nave over­lays on the main church, although dis­clos­ing brick works.
The bell tow­er, on the left side of the axi­al entrance of the nave, is a cement-base and cladding struc­ture from the begin­ning of the 20th century.
Thus, the work fol­lowed the prin­ci­ple of a con­tem­po­rary inter­ven­tion set­ting out its time dimen­sion, as well as new exte­ri­or ther­mal insu­la­tion; acces­si­bil­i­ties; inte­ri­or acoustics; light­ing; new ceram­ic pan­els and stained-glass win­dows; and the restora­tion of the choir and of the main and side chapels altarpieces.
There was a sub­trac­tion of the plas­ter and cement lay­ers of the façade, bring­ing the stone back to the sur­face as a solemn act of the “begin­ning” of the works. This return restored the orig­i­nal expres­sion and led to a spe­cial con­tem­po­rary inter­ven­tion on ele­ments that could not be changed as the bell tower.
If the sub­trac­tion con­cept on the facades is set, for the tow­er and for the eastern/southern ele­va­tion vol­ume it is pro­posed the inclu­sion of a steel skin pati­na (Corten steel) empow­er­ing the con­struc­tion to receive a rusty lay­er con­fer­ring maturation.
The project’s deci­sion traced the path of sub­trac­tion and aggre­ga­tion of dis­tinc­tive ele­ments, result­ing in a sym­bio­sis of sig­nif­i­cance, scale and the behav­iour of materials.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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