Paul Portuguese
The Church of Jesus the Redeemer at the opening of Modena deserves a thorough debate on the undoubted quality and architectural work, both in the liturgical setting, very innovative.
The church project is a pilot project launched by the Italian Bishops Conference, in 2000, the new churches of Modena, Foligno and Catanzaro, Squillace, won respectively by Mauro Galantino, Massimiliano Fuksas and Alexander Pizzolato.
Galantino The project clearly demonstrated the will to see the church as part of a system of functional spaces in parish life, giving the start to the "recognition" of the Church as such. The liturgical setting, prepared with Monsignor Joseph Arosio, as liturgist, but did not contain elements of novelty that characterize the other hand, the work undertaken that sees the community of the faithful divided into two opposing armies with a huge void in the middle to the end of which place the altar and the ambo.
In this innovative position, which might recall, regardless of bipolarity, the choir of the monastic churches, are carried out a series of aspirations often highlighted in the debate of recent decades: to recognize the lectern or greater dignity compared to the altar as the center of the liturgy of the word, to surround the presbytery, according to the demands of the German movement of liturgical innovation and to give greater dynamism in the liturgical event.
The impression that one test, attending Mass, but it is deeply disappointing. The two opposing armies and wander between the two poles of the celebrants bring a crisis not only the traditional unity of the worshiping community, but also what was the great achievement of Vatican II, the image of God's people meeting on the move. Why do you look in the face? Why do not you look
together to places fundamental the liturgy and the image of Christ?
Why are opposing points of the liturgy rather than side by side? Imprisoned in the pews, divided into areas such as the cohorts of an army, the faithful are obliged, remaining buildings, change the direction of the look right now to left now. The figure of the crucified in order to avoid the banality (holy platitudes just want to say!) Of the central location is located on the side of the altar and at the row of the left, with the inevitable consequence of not being reached by the look of many of the faithful if not at risk of stiff neck.
Benedict XVI, in a passage of his book: Introduction the spirit of the Liturgy (now included in the eleventh volume of the complete works, just released), quoting Josef A. Jungmann, one of the fathers of the Constitution on the Liturgy of Vatican II, wrote about the original shape of the liturgical assembly, "They do not close in a circle, do not look at each other, but, as God's people on the way, are starting to the east, toward the Christ who is coming, and comes to us. " The original form of Christian prayer can not tell us anything today or do we simply try our form, the form for our time? Obviously there is only a desire to imitate the past. Every age has to find and express the essential. That matters is therefore continue to discover what is essential through the epochal changes. It would certainly be wrong to reject entirely new forms of our century. It was right near the altar to the people, often too far from the faithful (...) was equally important to return to clearly distinguish the place of the liturgy of the word than the Liturgy of the Eucharist is real, however, essential to the common (...) orientation towards the east during the Eucharistic prayer. This is not something accidental, but the essential. "
Even in recent post-synodal apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis and Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict XVI offered on reflection and valuable guidance for the religious architecture that shows the futility of experiments that go beyond what the Second Vatican Council recommended affirming the compatibility between tradition and progress, urging not to introduce "innovations if they do not require a real established and welfare of the Church, and with the caveat that the new forms that gives rise organically, in some way from existing "(Sacrosanctum Concilium , III, 23).
In Sacramentum Caritatis states that: "An important element of sacred art is church architecture in the course which must be the unity between the particulars of the presbytery, altar, crucifix, tabernacle, ambo, home. " In Verbum Domini is also addressed the problem of the altar, ambo, "Special attention should be given to the lectern, as a place from which the liturgical is proclaimed the Word of God, it must be placed in a conspicuous place, which spontaneously ask the attention of the faithful during the liturgy of the Word.
is good that it is fixed, established as a sculptural element in aesthetic harmony with the altar, in order to represent visually the theological meaning of the twofold table of the Word and the Eucharist. "
is to be hoped that these ad hoc interventions by the Chair of St. Peter do liturgists and architects who understand the re-evangelization also passes through the church with the "c" so tiny and requires the effort of creative innovation, but also a careful consideration the tradition that has always been not pure preservation, but delivery of a legacy to build on.
What trends exist in the life of the church who support the thesis that involve liturgical practice is certainly a sign of vitality, but a church should be open to all, beyond the trends, striving to find and express the essential.
In terms of architecture, the church of Modena stays true to the spirit of rationalism, but his language, programmatically indifferent to the place, evokes in its ostentatious horizontality, the Netherlands has seen the rise of the plain, through the work of Mondrian and van Doesburg that process of abstraction and decomposition of volume that informs the De Stijl movement. Galantino in particular evokes the refined compositions of volumetric Dudok that mediate between abstraction and accuracy executive.
In harmonious volume all volumes analyze and examine the features of the environments that make up the body parish. Where are the saints, however, signs that make recognize the Church? The only sign, the presence of the bells - which could also be in a town hall.
no attention to the symbolic values \u200b\u200bof the entrance and inside the beautiful crucifix is \u200b\u200bplaced Zelma Bert van - as we have seen - in the background.
iconological The role is entrusted to two images that define consumerism: a "garden of olive trees" placed behind the altar in a small courtyard where trees suffer from the poor, and the "waters of the Jordan" reduced to a channel of water standing between two close walls that ends in the baptistery.
Inside, the roof curves down just where are located the sanctuary and the assembly and light, having lost all symbolic, down to the shoulders of the faithful where the ceiling is raised. Despite the pleasant and balanced, the sharpness of the design, the space is that of a beautiful meeting room in which nothing Claim transcendence and the path of the pilgrim people to safety.
The church of Modena is the clear demonstration that the aesthetic quality of architecture is not enough space to make a real church, a place where the faithful are helped to feel the living stones of a temple in which Christ is the cornerstone.
from L'Osservatore Romano, January 20, 2011
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