Vicens and Ramos' Corten Church

My latest feature is on the Santa Mónica Church in Rivas-Vaciamadrid by Ignacio Vicens and José Antono Ramos, in architektur.akteull, November 2009, pages 46 - 57.

I found things to like about the project and criticisms too -- particularly it's hostile relation to the neighborhood.

Most spectacular, of course, is the multi-lit apse:
"With its eruption of light behind the altar, trumpeted in from all sides by seven monumental light flues and set aflame by angled planes of gold leaf, the parochial church of Santa Monica ... is a contemporary, suburban descendant of the theatrical Baroque churches of the Counter Reformation."



Church on the defensive
Iglesia de Santa Mónica, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, by Vicens + Ramos.
architektur.aktuell, 2009-10, November 2009, pages 46 - 57.
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Photo by DC.

In the Shadow of the Alhambra

The young Granadine architect Alejandro Muñoz Miranda (1974) debuts with two buildings whose interwoven interior spaces are inspired in the geometric patterns of Islamic tilework. We feature his Granada Business Confederation Building and his Uion Headquarters Building in the latest issue of Bauwelt (German only):

Ein Häus für Gewerkschaften, ein Häus für Unternehmer
Bauwelt 42.09, November 6, 2009, pages 14 -21.

In the headquarters of the Granada Business Confederation, this play involves the virtually cubic space of a central atrium that is illuminated by smaller cubic volumes in three of its upper corners, which house clerestory windows and skylights. The cubic volumes interpenetrate one another, and generate other geometric forms in their intersection....

The interior public spaces of the unions' building respond to a completely different understanding of the uses of architectural space. While the atrium of the Business Confederation is treated as purely formal, static and representational, the interlocking voids of the unions' building are highly social in character, bringing to mind the interior spaces of Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger.

Photos of the projects on the Bauwelt webpage:
Business Confederation
Union Building

First Floor Plan, Union Headquarters Building