Are Protestant our Modern Churches?

The Reception in Spain of the Otaniemi Chapel

Abstract

The development of modern religious architecture had, from the beginning, an intense ecumenical character in several European countries. The building of spaces of worship seemed a good start to move towards the unity of Christians, since the request of principle that led to the archaeological foundation of these buildings was common between Catholic and Lutheran architects. In 1963 appeared the book «Iglesias nuevas en España» by the Dominican Arsenio Fernández Arenas. One of its chapters was entitled: «Are Protestant our modern churches?». Fernandez Arenas was a theologian who sought to overcome the most frequent readings on Catholic worship space, so the analysis of this text and the architectures to which it implicitly alludes offers a perfect opportunity to reflect on the important theme about the search for convergence between Christian confessions through the built form. Taking this argument as a starting point, this paper tries to explore the surprising influence of the chapel of the Otaniemi Polytechnic by Kaija and Heikki Siren in the Spanish Catholic churches during the second half of the last century. The discourse about divestment becomes crucial.