New religious buildings and Second Vatican Council

A Personal Experience

Abstract

This text provides some principles and criteria for the realization of new buildings that will shelter the activities of the Catholic Church. There is a huge variety of buildings that need the Church, from cathedrals to cemeteries. For purposes of this discussion, I will focus on the theme of an urban parish. I consider the parish center could be considered as a center of integral human development, since it takes into account all human activities considered holistically «body, soul and spirit», as proposed by St. Paul in 1Thess 5:23. The treatment of the subject, of course, requires both a religious and architectural approach. Therefore, the analysis is structured from the methodology of the architect, but every step of this methodology is based on the vision of faith that creates and encourages the construction of any parish center