Vol. 4 (2015): Latin America and the Second Vatican Council. Influences, Contributions, Singularities

Cover and index of the issue.

Changes suffering Catholic churches-and more generally, a significant portion of religious buildings during the twentieth century are the result of a complex encounter between the radical renewal takes place in modern architecture, as one of the answers to the complex process of renewal of our culture, and the changes within the Catholic Church, including a new theological consciousness, a new interpretation of the biblical sources, and significant changes in religious practice that expresses a new relationship between faith and the world. Certainly Vatican II is a key episode in the latter process. It is in this context that I propose to examine some specific features of the renewal of sacred architecture in Latin America.

If historiography has already specifically studied the links between the Italian liturgical architecture and Liturgical Movement of Central Europe, relations between Italy and Latin America are yet to study and clarify. This contribution wants to propose a first draft of research, analyzing how the main Italian magazines on liturgical architecture (Fede e Arte, published by the Vatican, and Chiesa e Quartiere, published by the diocese of Bologna) show the Christian Latin American architecture, also under broader interest of other headings on Latin American architecture (Casabella, Domus, L’Architettura. Cronache e Storia, etc.). This initial assessment, supported by the analysis of about thirty essais and articles, emerges a proposal of chronography on the fifties and sixties, a working hypothesis that may be subject to further deepening criticism.

Events of World War II resulted in significant social changes from 1945. This is considered to be the main motive behind the attempts for transforming the Catholic sacral space, defining the Christ-centered Church. While in most parts of the Catholic world it was a result of a natural, internal process, these changes didn’t make an effect in the Eastern European countries occupied by the Soviet Union, because religion and religiousness became persecuted under the newly established world order. The political powers professing atheist ideology and communist concepts considered the Church as the main power opponent of their own system. Not only in ideological sense, but also because of the Holy See’s organizational structure that spans state borders. The article interprets the presence of the effects of liturgic reforms, in correspondence with the Eastern politics of the Holy See.

The 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council coincides with another related event which links the conciliar reception to both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This refers to the publication of a monographic number dedicated to Mexico and that was edited in October 1965 by the Spanish magazine ARA: Arte Religioso Actual (Current Religious Art). A double number (issues 6 and 7 of the ARA collection) with a remarkable spirit, which was the result of an intense journey made by the magazine’s director —the Dominican friar José Manuel de Aguilar— by Mexico and Central American countries during that same summer, in order to exchange experiences and consulting services in the field of sacred art.
In addition to the fact that this monograph provided an unpublished vision of this topic, it also compiled a sample of works and signatures that offered an almost canonical view of the Mexican religious art and architecture at that moment.

This paper provides a contribution on the problem of the new churches to be built in the slums of Latin American megacities, where many rural communities who would like to build new churches come, but with the same forms of those left in their old villages. Here’s the problem: how to design new churches that are, in the future, consistent with a modern city and at the same time, to evoke the emotions of the long religious traditions of peoples that indigenous poverty has forced break.

Vatican II inspired a new conception of the Catholic church. In chapter VII of the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, the temple is conceived from seven general principles: freedom of artistic styles; fitness for a community liturgy; symbolic capacity; simplicity and authenticity; comfort; open and welcoming home; and renovations of existing buildings. Despite the apparent novelty of the council inspirations about the new liturgy and architecture, these provisions are an update of those driven by the Protestant Reformers, in opposition to Catholic-Roman liturgical practices of the sixteenth century, 400 years before. After the Reformation, the Protestant church is conceived as a place of personal and direct meeting between man and Jesus; between man and his neighbor; and man himself. In Latin America, the architectural guidelines of the Protestant Reformation, associated with the lack of resources and cultural qualities of the population, they manifested in temples conceived as domus ecclesiae, giving priority to the fraternal, egalitarian and communal encounter, long before the Second Vatican Council.

In the last 50 years there has been a remarkable change in the shape of the Catholic Church building with regard to the preceding decades. It is usually considered that this evolution is due to the Second Vatican Council: the renewal of the Christian liturgical space would be one of its most visible consequences. However, the Council said little about liturgical architecture and certainly did not intend to give specific guidelines on how to build churches. The analysis of the conciliar texts show that a Vatican II church is a place of prayer, with the understanding of prayer as as a general way of denominating a broad program of usage. The two main criteria that the Council desired in the renewal of Cristian architecture were: liturgical functionality and the promotion of active participation by the faithful. This should have been realised at the same time as the reform of the books of the renewed liturgy.

Along the second half of the Twenty Century, even before being published the new ideas proposed by the Second Vatican Council, Mexican Architects were looking for new expressions in the design of Religious buildings. Taking advantage of new materials, building techniques and structural design such as the use of hypars, new churches are design with a contemporary aesthetic and following the distribution that the principles of the Second Vatican Council established for the liturgy. An example of the transformation from the old model distribution into the new liturgical needs is the Church of the Holy Cross design by Antonio Attolini Lack in Mexico City.

In 1987, John Paul II visits Argentina and calls on the laity to commit to education and culture. With the blessing of Monsignor Antonio Quarracino, archbishop of La Plata, the chair of Sacred Architecture in the UCALP career of Architecture is created. The challenge was —and still remains— that students understand the needs of Catholic sacred space, reinforcing their doctrine and architectural concepts. Using a program that was perfected over the years, research, study, reflection, teaching and doing architecture accompaniment is addressed. The aim of all this is that the student, enlightened by the Gospel, be able to design a building with a full understanding of the concept church. This academic and personal search of learners is reflected in draft constructible architecture, which synthesize aesthetics and decisive imprint of each of them.

In terms of religious architecture in the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council led towards a bigger work, research and reflections on how the architectural space adapted to its precepts.
However, regarding to the study cases, balance has shifted towards the temples that respond favorably to those provisions, which arise from a deep theoretical and symbolic reflection, or are projected by some prestigious architects and engineers. Still, national reality shows that these cases are the less and the enforcement of Vatican’s precepts is not as flattering.
Considering this background and in the understanding of the different types of characters who take design decisions in the materialization of the temple, it intends the urgent development of a document which containes some general and flexible design guidelines so they can adapt to each site and its peculiarities

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council aimed, in the words used by Pope John XXIII, the aggiornamento of the Catholic Church. The inseparable complementariness between the concept of resourcing and of openness to a new world led to a change of the paradigm of the church temple to the house for the living stones. It is in this context where it comes to light the opportunity to explore the contributions of two non-Christians architects: Aldo van Eyck, and Lina Bo Bardi. In their works and especially in their thoughts it is possible to recognize an elective affinity with the spirit of the Christian aggiornamento.

The San Buenaventura Seminary is located in Mérida (Venezuela). Designed by Manuel Mújica Millán, it has become a local architectonic heritage, and an essential part of mons. Chacón´s —the constructor archbishop— City of God. The chapel for the Minor Seminary was designed as a heritage intervention through an integration of the arts, in which the theme is Christ’s resurrection. With an austere language, the work of art stands as Le Corbusier’s «présense insigne». This integration was carried out by the TiA (Taller i Arte + Arquitectura). The visual and liturgical focus is the retable, in which Gómez Callejas’ work of Christ risen made in cuir de cordoue surges from the larger opening. It is the result of a work called «Reality Manifestations of the Mystery». The smaller opening is occupied by the tabernacle, a restored liturgical object. This way, art and architecture intend to be bonded in order to testify a live Incarnation: sacramental presence of the mystery of Passover, which has the objective of transformation through the cross and the new body of resurrection, according to Ratzinger.

During the 1960’s decade, the city of Concepción, Chile, went through several changes. The impact of an earthquake and a new Urban Plan determined substantial transformations in the way of perceive local architecture. At the same time, Catholic Church also went through important changes that were reflected on its architecture. Concepción was part of those transformations and examples of those buildings can be found on its entire metropolitan area. These pieces (that also influenced the architecture of protestant churches) transcended more than the spiritual aspects, rethinking the architecture, creating and configuring neighborhoods and public spaces and becoming important and appreciated landmarks in the city.

The shrines of pilgrimage that hosts the Marian devotions sponsoring twenty one countries in Latin America are buildings that are very present in the collective imagination of every nation, and which influence the people who make the decisions, whether bishops, priests, sacred art commissions or faithful associations. Only five of them dating from the colonial era. Six others were built in the 19th century, after the independence of their respective countries. Finally, we find nine buildings that were completed after Vatican II.
This paper shows a panoramic tour around these temples-all wear the title of basílica-, with the main objective of searching the lines of force of religious architecture in Latin America.

Friar Gabriel de la Mora (Guadalajara, November 26, 1929) is a Mexican architect, monk, liturgist and honorary canon of the National Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe. He has extensive experiencer in Mexican religious and contemporary architecture and has contributed substantially in the area of iconography. He is well known for his artistic creations of iconography, painting, sculptures, carved wood, furniture, sacred vessels, metalwork, liturgical garments, stained glass, openwork iron, mosaics and also book-cover designs. The following conversation with Friar Gabriel explores spirituality and contemporary Mexican religious architecture. Friar Gabriel details his first contact with religious architecture, his experience with the Second Vatican Council, and his architectural contribution particularly in the sacred site of Tepeyac.

In Mexico, the Gothic Revival style was developed from the third quarter of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, associated with a repositioning strategy of the Catholic Church against the Mexican liberal governments. However, the various wars (Mexican revolution, Cristiada), anticlerical government policies and economic problems made that some of the largest temples in that style was continued slowly their construction for decades, reaching it until today. This paper analyses like two of these temples, the Shrine of Virgen de Guadalupe in Zamora (Michoacán) and the Expiatory Temple of the Blessed Sacrament in Guadalajara (Jalisco) were adapted to the liturgical guidelines of the Second Vatican Council. The result is an aesthetic and architectural< paradox that becomes the outside Gothic of these temples in a box full of symbolism while inside of the temple assumes the guidelines Second Vatican Council, but embedded in a Gothic environment.

In this paper, the promises and perils of buildings seeking transcendence are evaluated. After a short discussion on the aesthetic and ethical modes of employing architecture to transcend, the conversation moves into the ambiguity of the term transcending. Considering this expression certainly lends itself rather easily for a nuanced and profound discussion. For who or what is doing the transcending? And exactly what is that being transcended? This vagueness is not just a semantic artifact of the word transcending but perhaps born out of the (at least phenomenological) reality of transcendental architectural experiences. For sure, it forbids closure, secures humility, and encourages new interpretations, even of the ones already concocted. This article is a re-elaboration of the chapter introducing the book Transcending Architecture. Contemporary Views on Sacred Space by the author and published by CUA Press (Washington DC, 2015).

This intervention aims to investigate the figure of Lina Bo Bardi, an Italian architect who moved to Brazil in 1946, at the end of the Second World War, who during his years of activity in Italy was also collaborating with the architect Gio Ponti. Bo Bardi sacred architecture will be discussed in detail. Among the large number of works by the architect are, in fact, two small but significant churches built in Brazil in the seventies of the last century.
What were the Lina Bo Bardi architectural references to the place of worship? How her Italian training has permeated her work and how they have been contaminated by the architecture of the new continent? A few years before, the Second Vatican Council had given new liturgical indications. We can wonder if the liturgical opening was seen in his work as part of the architectural discourse used or if it simply was took as a fact occurred.

This paper asks how religious architecture in the urban periphery of Lima, acquires an expression in line with Vatican II? Cities like Lima overwhelmed by the provincial immigrants living in urban peripheries, will be the scene in which the actors of the new districts built their new parishes. In this areas, cultural, ideological, political and social factors, together with the liturgical changes, will condition the religious architecture, his messages and meanings. This research seeks to establish as Second Vatican Council and ideologies of the late twentieth century in Lima Norte, determine the expression of the religious architecture, displaying their close relationship with theology, ecclesiology and liturgy; pastoral missions; marxism; the ecumenical spirit —christians of other faiths; Cultural and Popular Churches; the postmodernism; and liberationist and developmentalist discourses.

The necessity for new places to live the postconciliar liturgy to the fullest has urged the development of an artistic project within the Neocatechumenal Way which codifies the space used for celebrations. This plan by Kiko Argüello includes not only the parish itself but also other buildings or structures such as the international centers designed for the new evangelization and the Redemptoris Mater seminaries.
This research particularly looks at the schools for the training of priests operated by the Neocatechumenal Way, where new architectural spaces have been created in response to particular demands related to prayer and Scripture studies. As a result, The Sanctuary of the Word, a room inspired by the Jewish tradition and aimed at both community worshipping and Scrutatio Scripturae, shows a new and very simple typology in terms of architecture, but full of meaning and symbolism.

This essay is an analysis of the Latin-American participation in the five editions of the Premio Internazionale di Architettura Sacra Frate Sole (International Contest of Church Architecture Frate Sole) 1996-2012. It was a significant and relevant presence, which had been increasing in time and it reached its heyday in the First Prize given to the Cappella of Auco of Undurraga-Deves during the latest edition of the international event.
It’s due to mention the particular character of the International Contest —in each edition only the churches built in the previous decade can be submitted— and its peculiar contemporary and universal vocation to promote the Church architecture.
The meaningful proposals, besides the rewarded ones, which came from the Latin-American countries, will be analyzed to contextualize their peculiarities. The results obtained in these years mean to sugg

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

Two aesthetic elements point to a place in the landscape.
Two signs of deep resonance.
One, curved cover, concrete coat.
Another, the cross of Christ.
The landscape increases.
The space of the temple and the space of nature.