The Building of the Christian Community, the Word of God for the Neighbourhood and the City

A Proposal of Evangelisation for Architecture and City Planning

Abstract

The liturgical space cannot avoid testifying to the miracle of a Presence, and can only do so by its own means: through the evidence of structural masses, the combination of materials, textures, colours; the harmonious shape of forms; the fluid movement of light that covers it and, at the same time, is dominated by it. This activates a silent communication that stirs the soul through the senses, and that, by touching our spirit, helps us to live the experience of God, thereby making us like all those who, in all ages and places, have turned their eyes to heaven, have elevated prayers and built temples. I firmly believe that this natural vocation of liturgical architecture preserves its value intact even in the altered setting of the contemporary city, and that the church space should still strive to answer that need of the sacred that dwells in each of us. This does not mean shaping more or less bold prospects, intended to suggest a vague mysticism or induce an indefinite emotional suggestion, but it implies a conscious and deliberate inquiry into those architectural themes that for centuries have been able to give the place of worship traits clearly referable to the Person of Christ, to the theology of revelation, to the history of salvation.