In the fifth practice I am going to talk about the composition of the church i talked in the second practice.

The Church is called the Parish of the Solace and it was designed by the architects Ignacio Vicens and Antonio Ramos. This two architects work together in a studio called Vicens and Ramos.

The Church is situated in Córdoba, 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 firsts designs were made in 2006 and the total project was finished in 2011.

Here he have some plans with the main elevations, sections, plant…

Now we are going to focus in the COMPOSITION and different peculiarities of the building:

Firstly we can see the Rhythm:

When we talk about rhythm. We must think about the musical instrument called battery or about bits in music. But in architecture there is also a rhythm, it can been clearly seen in the facades, the windows and different elements which gives what we call rhythm. But in this case, rhythm cannot be clearly seen. The part with most resemblance to rhythm is the facade which is divided in rectangles.

Secondly we can see HIERARCHY. In this building there are 2 ways by which we can see a hierarchy.

The first way is the difference between the window which is in the horizontal part and the window which is in the vertical part. As the vertical part is more importsnt, the window is bigger in order to give Hierarchy.

The second way is very similar. The vertical part is situated in such a position compared to the horizontal one that gives a hierarchy.

The following element of composition we can see in this building is MOVEMENT.

This can be seen in the cros section. The ceiling has a cruced shape which gives an ilusion of movement. This is very common in modern buildings like this one.

CENTRALITY also appears in this bulding. During all the history, many buildings have been built for religious purposes and many architectonic styles has been developed. In fact, a very common type pf plant is the centered plant by which the main psrt of the church is in the center. In this case, the main part is not in the center. we could think thst there is not centrality, but in fact, hierarchy p, that was talked before gives that centrality as the most importsnt part is bigger thsn ghe others, so there is a centrslity of the attention of the viewer into the main part.

LIGHT is also an importsnt factor. Despite the fact of just having few windows, the ilumination of this building is awesome.

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.

CONTRAST is also important. When we talk about contrast in this building we talk about the contrast between the elements it is formed and the contrast with the environment. In the facade, there is an evident contrast between the facade and windows. In the interior, the heights are different causing a constrast. obviously the higher part is in the main part, at the front.

But this church also contrasts with the elements that surrounds it, the garden, the sky…

TEXTURE is very similar to contrast, For example in the facade we have two parts made of sifferent elements, they contrasts in such a way that gives a feeling of closeness

In the interior, there are also different textures, for example, the different materials, as stone and wood.

Finally we are going to talk about PROPORTIONS. Its true that it can seem that there are no proportions but if we look in detail. we will see that the plant is formed by a rectangle of two squares. There is also a proportion in a minor scale between the main room of the church, the nave and the plant of a little chapel.

Bibliography

In this practice I have been helped mainly with the web Archimaster.com which has facilitated me, the information and descriptions of the Parish of the Solace and the Main, Top and Side elevations and crossections of the Church.