The Shell of Faith in the City. The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Gio Ponti

Abstract

To design a church is to redesign religion, as to redefine religion, noted Gio Ponti in his text entitled Architettura e Religione. The evolution of Christian church building in the 60s paved new design paths for many reasons.  One of the accents of the Second Vatican Council (1965) was the relationship of the Church of Rome with art and culture. Through a broader reform a modernized ecclesiastical planning was promoted. The perception of the shell as a characteristic of the temple is revised by design, weaving a new web of relationships.

Churches are buildings whose life is longer than the life of other utilitarian buildings. Gio Ponti designed subversive shells that were aesthetically innovative and that could respond to future social perceptions. The research focuses on the architectural shell, as the applied feature of Ponti's architecture, associated with the transcendental content that governs the ontology of the ecclesiastical temple. The shell expressed the new regime of free choices associated with both technological developments and its personality and positions regarding the relationship between architecture and faith. At the same time, the morphology of the shell contributed to the reformation of the identity of the church building, but also of the city itself. The essential dynamic expression of faith through the clear lines of the shell, combined with the balance interrupted by the complexity of the surface, combines the sacredness and play of Ponti's form, creating an open dialogue that subverts the inner meaning of faith.