In this third practice I am going to talk about a building made by the architect I talked in the last practice. This recognised architect is called Ignacio Vicens and is one of the two foundators of the architectural studio called VICENS&RAMOS.

The building we are going to study in this practice is a Church. As we have been studying during this day in Introduction to Architecture, temples have been present troughout the major part of our history as a human race.

History of Temples:

Since the Ancient Egypt the presence of temples in towns and cities have been registered. This temples have been developing as different cultures have approached. After the egiptians, the Romans dedicated temples to their gods leading as the Panteon of Rome at their begginins. After the conversion of the Emperor Constantino the 1st, the Christianism was officially the main religion of the Empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christian temples, called churches and monasteries were developing. Lombards, Visigoths, Carolingians, Saxons, introduced new items to this architecture that was the main one. This was due to the Teocentrism the European Culture lived at that moment, so the house of God was the main elemnt of the city.

But this religious temples weren’t only christians. After the 6th century the spread of Islam was evident. Islamic culture and architecture developed in most of the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 15th centuries. The new islamic temples were called Mosques, which adopted incredible measures as we can seen from the Mosque at Cordoba from Al-Andalus.

During the Middle Ages the Romanesque and Gothic style achieved in my opinion the “boom” in religious architecture, as temples achieved incredible dimensions and there were real masterpieces such as the “Duomo di Milano”…

Reinaissance and Baroque coincide during an historic moment where the power of the Church was evident, and the ostenticity of Religious buildings such as the Basilica of Saint Peter at the Vatican City in Rome.

From 20th Century the new Architectural currents arrived into the religious architecture. The “Modernisme” left his fingerprint thanks to the Master Gaudí in Barcelona, who made one of the best religious architctural masterpieces of our country, “La Sagrada Familia”. From that moment the majority of the Chruches built up have adquired modern styles, this might be as an objective to show that the Religion is not dead, it is more alive than ever.

Parish Curch of the Solace

The name of the church I am going to talk is the Parish Church of the Solace. It is situated in Códoba, on a corner plot in a residential area between Historiador Dozy and Francisco Azorín. The extended side is situated in front of a green zone and the lateral side faces residential buildings. To the North ans West of the plot the structure is set back four meters off the boundaries. On the north face, the entire surface which coincide with the lenght of the structure is occupied by an English style garden at the height of the basement, to allow light and ventilation and give a courtyard that can be accesible by the public.

The complete parish is enclosed by a single prism with the peculiarity that the short facade on the corner rises to seek the utmost possible light, fusing three concepts that are historically separate, the bell-tower, singular facade and light entrance or skylight. The prism is white prefabricated concrete with a fluted base able to introduce horizontal light
The prism consists of the vestibule on the opposite end of the front wall of the presbytery, from where one enters the temple, the local parish basement and the first floor dwellings. The entrance of the church has access to the sacristy, the chorus, the main hall and the chapel of the Blessed.

The interior space is unified by a cloud with a convex plain form locked in by the structure. The cloud circulates around the space until it is lost in the heights of the skylight. The light fades on the curved plane while dripping the headwall of the presbytery. This diffused light illuminates the entire temple. In the chapel of the Blessed a similar cloud forms the ceiling, like in the main hall, but instead it rises and the bends down to accommodate the altar.

The unity of the composition like the unit to which sacred architecture aspires allows the integration on the idea of a temple a sacred art inside. Many artists have added their work to the final configuration of the sacred space

No, I am going to upload the plans of the Church.

Plant View

North View

South View

East View

West View

Section A

Section B

Bibliography:

In this Practice I have been aided from different information of different places specially information from the Parish of the Solace. I have found information from 2 main webs:

The first one, that is where I have found the description not only about the exterior but also the interior of the Church and the different elevations of the Church thanks to Archimaster.com

The other one is the official page of the Architects that is Vicens&Ramos.com

Finally I have found different information about historic architecture in Wikipedia and Crehana.com