Contemporary insertions in church-buildings: dissonances, consonances and dialectical relationships
Among the monuments, the consecrated church-buildings over time have never lost their original intended
use as places reserved for worship. Their beauty lies in knowing how to renew themselves as ‘open’ works
of architecture because the Church, while preserving the faith unaltered, does not perpetuate itself, its
architecture, its works of art and its rituals in the same way.
Some reflections illustrate the compatibility or the criticality of contemporary operations in dissonance,
consonance and dialectical relationship with regard to the pre-existing architectural space and to the new
insertions (versus populum altar, ambon, celebrant and ministers seats) for the liturgical renewal following the Second Vatican Council (1959-65).
To introduce any changes for the new liturgy into the history of the monument, considering the instances
of stratification and current image of the church-building, means intervening today in a qualitative way,
as already occurred in the past centuries.
The considerations come from the direct reading of the interventions already realised in some church-buildings of the main Italian and European cities.
