Parish Church and Community Centre / VZ Arquitectos

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Interior PhotographyParish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Interior Photography, Windows, BeamParish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 4 of 30Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 5 of 30Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - More Images+ 25

  • Author Architects: Enrique Villar Pagola, Rodrigo Zaparaín Hernández
  • Architect Collaborator: Ricardo González Martínez
  • Altarpiece Sculptor: Javier Martínez Pérez
  • Direction Of Execution: Lucio Monje Ahijado
  • Video: Juan Carlos Quindós
  • Promoter: Parish of saint Josemaría Escrivá. Archbishop of Burgos
  • Altarpiece Painter: Rodrigo Zaparaín Hernández
  • Cost: 2.279.000 €
  • City: Burgos
  • Country: Spain
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Text description provided by the architects. The project for a holy place is approached from a double viewpoint. On the one hand to characterise the space so that it expresses adequately its condition as holy, and on the other to give an answer to a series of functional demands peculiar to the liturgy. In their turn these are endowed with a great air of symbolic meanings.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Interior Photography
© Juan Carlos Quindós

For that purpose we have trusted in our own forms of contemporary language which have already been explored in previous projects (the church of St.John Paul II in Simancas or the chapel of Alcazaren College, both in Valladolid). This was also applied to the use of space, the scale, the use and characterisation of light, the sculptural treatment of the space, the volume, and the coordination of a united iconographical programme in agreement with the language and characteristics of the temple.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 16 of 30
© Juan Carlos Quindós

We have decided on a building with defined volumes which provide an answer to each and every element of the programme. These consist of the bell tower and a columbarium in its interior, a continuous base skirting the limits of the perimeter, which houses the parish centre with its accesses, and lastly, for the temple, a cubic volume which emerges from an a strip of glass.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Interior Photography
© Juan Carlos Quindós

The treatment of the exterior was resolved by covering it with just one material. This was GRC (Glass Reinforced Concrete) with a grooved finish, with fragments of a large size and horizontal modulation organised in levels. We have tried to enhance the public character of the building in the urban residential surroundings. The apertures for light have been treated with a scale according to the global volume, unifying them with the use of darkened glass.The volumes have been excavated so as to form the accesses and have lighting spaces available on a lesser scale.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 21 of 30
Ground Floor Plan
Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 29 of 30
Longitudinal Section 1

The central area of the church has been designed from a square floor area which backs on to the chapel for daily use. Access is from the foot of the nave, beneath the choir so that the space  and the altarpiece can be gradually revealed. There is a continuous base of grey marble which maintains the same level round the area. In this close area the ceremonies associated with the liturgy occur.

The base ties in to the topography of the presbytery and contributes so that the faithful have at their disposal a close reference of scale reinforced by the horizontal plane of the choir. At the same time it establishes a horizontal plane from which extends the space encompassing the most symbolic presided over by the altarpiece and the sanctuary, the white vertical walls, the horizontal crevice through which the light is introduced, and the plane of the blue ceiling with an engraved cross.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 5 of 30
© Juan Carlos Quindós

The altarpiece is the work of the sculptor Javier Martinez. From the beginning it was decided that the altarpiece would be scenic. All the front of the altarpiece has been treated in unison as a carved wall of great thickness, which houses the platform in which the central scene is developed, the niche for the sanctuary and the alcove with the painting of the titular saint of the church.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 4 of 30
© Juan Carlos Quindós

What have been looked for are the formal and textual contrasts between the different elements used. These are, dark smooth marble on the base, large pieces of coarse limestone in the “predella”, a white plane which frames the altarpiece and the gilded texture of the background.

Parish Church and Community Centre  / VZ Arquitectos - Image 17 of 30
© Juan Carlos Quindós

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Project location

Address:Calle Luis Rodríguez Arango, 7, Burgos, Spain

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
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Cite: "Parish Church and Community Centre / VZ Arquitectos" 15 Feb 2016. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/781991/parish-church-and-community-centre-vz-arquitectos> ISSN 0719-8884

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