Church of Beatified Restituta / Atelier Stepan

Textual content description offered by the architects. Tips on how to Construct Heaven / Heaven above Lesná / The Rainbow Church / The Futuristic Church / Internal Universe/ God’s Contact Intention Architect Marek Jan Štěpán has occupied himself with the thought of this church intermittently for the previous 30 years. Nevertheless, the intention to construct a church first got here up within the relaxed environment of 1968 and was lastly fulfilled after 50 years. Its location was chosen by the architects of the great housing property, František Zounek and Viktor Rudiš. The church is totally funded by the church choices and donations. It’s the first church to be devoted to Bl. Marie Restituta who was born roughly 600 meters from its location.

Urbanism. The church is situated within the coronary heart of the housing property on the mouth of the Čertova rokle ravine. The realm is roofed with tall concrete condominium buildings. The brand new church can not compete with them when it comes to dimension, which is why it has been designed to be quite simple in expression, elementary in geometry, and subsequently simply legible. An oblong plateau is laid out on the plot that defines the sacred district. There are three primary plenty on it – the church, the tower, and the non secular centre (designed by Zdeněk Bureš). The unique centre is rectangular, the tower is triangular and the church is round, which implies the three primary geometric shapes are all represented. The sacred district is constructed on a totally totally different scale which differentiates it from the encircling blocks of flats and creates a dominant on an entirely new degree.

The Circle. The church has a round ground plan. The circle is an age-long image of heaven and eternity (in distinction to the sq., which refers to earth and transience). The heaven is mirrored again within the vibrant annular window that embraces the church just under the roof. It is perhaps mentioned that the circle is floating above Lesná or, on a figurative, transcendental degree, that the heaven is floating above Lesná. There are a number of the reason why we selected a round form for the church. The circle is the form of fullness, it’s the full cease within the space of the housing property and its non secular focus that ought to function a spot the place individuals can escape of the day by day hustle, relaxation for some time, or recollect themselves. The circle can be very near the modern notion of the liturgy within the church that represents the group of the Apostles and Jesus across the desk in the course of the Final Supper. The tabernacle is situated in a tall apse illuminated from above that’s located on the left aspect of the church. The church wall is torn by a triangular opening at this level, which serves as a reference to the tear within the Jerusalem temple curtain.

The Tower. The tower stands farther from the church. Its triangular ground plan ensures that it appears to be like totally different from the within of the church than it appears to be like from the skin. From the skin it serves as a set level, a static kubus that refers back to the works of the previous church buildings and that anchors the entire compound on a small promontory. The aspect going through the church is open with a sq. lantern and there’s a yellow half with a glockenspiel and a pink half with a lookout on the Brno metropolis centre. The tower is each a vertical and horizontal. Not like the historic towers that time solely to heaven like a rocket, right here the route is diverted and factors to the church, which represents the vertical of the connection of God and His individuals. Being 31 meters excessive, it’s a native dominant despite the fact that it isn’t greater than the encircling blocks of flats. A metal spiral staircase goes by way of the concrete tower, which, when trying above, reminds one of many color scheme and the form of the church dome. The signal FOS ZOE (which means gentle and life) within the form of the cross is inscribed on the tower. The identical signal was present in archaeological digs in Mikulčice courting again to Velká Morava interval. Materiality

The fabric of the constructing follows up on the fabric principally used within the surrounding housing property, which is concrete. It’s constructed on pilots as one dilatation unit. Prestressed strengthened concrete is used for probably the most strained elements – wreaths and chancels, chancels are coated by moniers constructions. The concrete supplies are complemented by distinctive vibrant components. The church is designed as environmentally pleasant, because the parishioners requested. Heating is offered by a floor supply warmth pump. The Concrete Essentially the most lovely high quality of concrete is that it’s truthful; it displays the trouble and vitality put into the formwork, into the pouring and compacting of the concrete, into the processing of the components and the combination. All that can have an effect on the floor, in its vivacity, as a mirrored image of life. A parallel might be discovered within the historic stone masonry manufactured from particular person blocks of various hues and cementing the joints. With concrete, there are the imprints of the shuttering interstices, distinct surfaces imprinted by the shuttering, and barely totally different concrete in each pouring, which signifies that poured concrete visually follows up on the stone masonry. The austerity of concrete additionally refers back to the modern notion of the sacral house, which shouldn’t be visually or semantically overloaded.

There may be an fascinating reality relating to the exact particulars and the ending of the surfaces. Muhammad Lasfer from Algeria was answerable for the surfaces and I believe that as a Moslem initially from the Center East he has an in depth affinity to abstraction that’s desired when working with concrete surfaces. (Quotation Marek Štěpán – An Incident with the Hearth Fighters) “On Christmas Day 2019 within the morning firefighters had to reply to a name relating to the church in Lesná. They got here after a few of the neighbours reported that the church tower is on fireplace. The reality is that in distinction to the sky blue I used the symbolic colors of earthly life, fireplace, and struggling (yellow and pink) however I didn’t understand that colors had such nice energy. There was no fireplace, it simply regarded like that within the morning solar.”