Project one
Benedictine Church of the Holy Trinity, Santiago, Chile
Located in the Los Piques hills below the Andes Mountain range and right at the edge of the suburbs of Santiago, this Monastery church was designed by Father Gabriel Guarda and Brother Martin Correa in the early 1960s, with the buildings completion in 1964. The Monastery was originally designed by architect and teacher Jaime Bellalta and his wife Esmee Cromie after they were awarded the commission following a private competition in 1953, but lack of funds only enabled them to build two of the three original cloister-centred buildings that they had planned. Guarda and Correa had completed their architectural training in the Santiago school of Architecture before entering the Benedictine order. Their membership of this monastery and association with religion is a clear motive for the reasoning and design of the church which adopts daylight into clerestory and ambient light that illuminates the main church in a very light and sacred way.
In the 1920s, the liturgical movement prompted the renewal and redesign of churches because of a decline in interest in the spectacle of the church and communion. This resulted in the church layout been rethought and the idea of putting more emphasis on the altar was brought up. This led to the idea of almost presenting the altar on a stage and creating a more dramatic and interesting environment within the space. This is where the idea of using natural light as both an aesthetical and practical guide can be seen. The natural light can be manipulated to point you in the direction of something that the architect wants you to see, to keep your attention and put the feature at hand on front stage. This natural light in turn can react with the structural layout or materiality in order to create a particular scene or feeling, which creates aesthetical environments. This notion can be adopted into the design of churches given the religious aspects. Light is something refreshing, it gives clarity and can sometimes seem otherworldly. It is this thought on light that can create a sacred and otherworldly setting, an atmosphere that connects to a deeper meaning within the religion of the church if the architecture is incorporated with the natural light correctly. This is something that can be clearly, beautifully and simply seen within the church of this Benedictine Monastery.
Location of the church in relation to the suburbs of Santiago and the Andes mountain range
It would be very easy for an architect in Chile to adopt natural light into their design and work given the geographical location and strong Chilean sunlight. The monastery is already easily exposed to sunlight with its altitude on the hills neighbouring Santiago, and given the two architects link to religion, they can use this decent light exposure to adapt the natural light into the notion of clerestory, sacred light that prompts internal space on a religious pedestal. Correa himself was very fond of revolving the church around the encounter of natural light within the church, and speaks of his own personal confrontation with natural light and the natural world;
“Anyway, searching for the soul of our church, I found myself one day in the middle of a pine- wood. Falling through the highest branches the brilliant sunlight was transformed into more subtly graded light … It was a space cleared of trunks, silent, secluded, welcoming, transcendent. It was a thrilling, enchanted space, in that despite the character of its enclosure, it created a ‘religious atmosphere’”
The influence of the religious world is evident in Correa’s design motives, showing his desire to take this enchanted space created by the natural world and adapt it into a religious aspect in his new project.
The monastery includes the original two buildings built by Bellalta and a cloister, but its within the chapel designed by Correa and Guarda where the use of daylight is seen. The plan is designed around the idea of two adjacent cubes that overlap at their corners. It is on this corner overlap where the altar is positioned, like a stage in front of an audience. In the remainder of one cube is where the pews and central aisle leading from the main entrance are situated and the remainder of the other cube is where the chancel (area reserved for clergy and choir) is situated. The main flow and continuity of the direction of the architecture runs diagonally through the square plans, as the main entrance upon the vast hall is on the corner and runs straight along the aisle from corner to corner of the plans with the altar directly in front. The orientation of the plan is specifically arranged to face north to the local sun path (as Santiago is in the southern hemisphere). This is to allow for the play specific play of light and gain as much light exposure. This play with daylight mainly happens around the overlap of the two cubes. The ceiling height of the second cube (chancel cube) is positioned higher than that of the first. This allows for the daylight to travel through this difference in ceiling light and travel along the edges of the wall curtained behind the altar and ascend down the heavy materiality of the reinforced cast-in-situ concrete, giving weightlessness to the dense and heavy material. This light not only creates a beautiful presence with aesthetics but also successfully and effectively illuminates the space with soft light. This soft light harshens nearer and above the altar, truly fulfilling to desire to focus more emphasis on the altar ad surrounding chancel area. The functional and aesthetical capabilities of daylight are pleasantly expressed in this church’s design, showing a play of clerestory light that expresses an ascension of religious meaning and also the lights reaction with the structure and materiality, and then simultaneously lighting the space with certain specifications, that being the lighting of the altar and chancel to present it as a focal point, which in turn illuminates the rest of the space softly as ambient light from the walls creates a more subtle, comfortable light.
Plan of the church, showing the overlap of the two cubes and the positioning of the altar. The main diagonal axis between the pews leading from corner to corner of the cubes can be clearly seen
View of the altar from the entrance to hall along its main diagonal axis
As seen in the picture of the chapel above, the manipulation of the light leads to a crosshairs of beams of light that cross in the centre of the junction between the walls and ceiling and curtain behind the altar. This crosshair of light is directly along the main axis of the plan, further showing the lights ability to emphasise a particular area. These beams of light basically drag your focus and attention to the altar and its accompanying chancel. Since the plan is broken into two cubes, the light source very distinctively illuminates the altar cube primarily and enhances a strong, yet not harsh, contrast between the space within the second cube and the remaining initial space. This contrast in presented to you nicely upon entrance to the church. The architecture has shown an ability to almost completely separate a singular space into two separate spaces through the contrast generated between the interaction of light, materiality and structure. It really enhances the notion of propping the church altar on a stage, the outcome that was desired by the initial architectural motive.
This architecture shows both functional and aesthetical use of daylight, showing an ability to illuminate a space with certain specification by dominantly illuminating the altar but also using this diffuse light to give comfortable light to the remaining area, while simultaneously creating an aesthetic and clever combination between the light and architecture.
References
Chapel of the Benedictine Monastery: Light emerging, the origin of an idea [Internet]. Guiding Architects. 2020 [cited 27 October 2020]. Available from: https://www.guiding-architects.net/benedictine-monastery-chile/ (Photos and information)
Steane M. The Architecture of light: Recent Approaches to designing with natural light. London: Taylor and Francis Ltd; 2011. (quotes and information)
