AD Classics: Iglesia Santa Ana / Miguel Fisac

Iglesia Santa Ana, previously featured in Archdaily’s Architecture City guide: Madrid, is one of Miguel Fisac’s lesser known works. Though situated on the outskirts of Madrid, according to its pastor the church is still regularly visited by architecture pilgrims that heard of its existence. The Santa Ana church is a fine example of how this cunning architect managed to use the possibilities of prefabricated concrete combined with in-situ concrete to create a sacral space that is so much more than just a summation of its similar parts.

Flickr, Javier1949

This parish complex, located in a lower class suburb of Madrid, fulfills an idea of plastic expression of each of the spaces of which it consists: the atrium, the temple, the sacristy and the parish offices. Fisac set out in a new conception which attempted to formalize a new space based on two fundamental principles.

Firstly, the new way of arranging those attending Mass make that participation is more direct, grouping them in a ring around the altar, giving us an oval shape. The crowd would be more spread along the width of the nave so the last rows would still be relatively close to the altar. The second is the transformation of the altar which changes from being a static point of reference to being a dynamic focus which changes in interest during the liturgical ceremony. The consecration and the Communion are hierarchically performed in two hollows made in the vertical wall of the oval or apse. The Holy Sacrament is kept in a third hollow lit from the side.

Es Por Madrid

Fisac, F. Arques Soler

Miguel Fisac has always considered the construction facet of his projects to be an essential part of the creative process in architectural works. He believes that the methods employed in the construction of the work and the criteria followed when choosing a particular structural system and a particular material must reflect a specific aesthetic result.

Miguel Fisac started to study reinforced concrete structures in the early 1950s. It was in 1958, however, on the basis of his view of trabeated architecture and the new possibilities opened up to him by the incorporation of industrialization and prefabrication into architecture, that

Fisac, F. Arques Soler

Flickr, Javier1949

“I have come up with light, closed, hollow solutions which offer similarities to vertebrae ‘bones’ and this makes me think that I could be moving down the right road since there is a parallel between this and certain natural solutions” - M. Fisac

These ‘bones’ are used to span every space in the church, making optimal use of the flexibility of these singular elements. They essentially represent an idea based on the technical solution for a roof with wide spans between supports, by means of a single repetitive pre-cast element which simultaneously provides a solution to the structural problem, the use of

Fisac, F. Arques Soler

El País

Fisac, F. Arques Soler

The Iglesia Santa Ana together with other works of Fisac are each individual parts of an exploratory search to process his visions into real architecture that incorporates everything he thought was important for good architecture; reducing costs, finding singular solutions for multiple problems, the play of light and shadow, and to allow the materials to express their character.

Cite:Frank van Kessel, “AD Classics: Iglesia Santa Ana / Miguel Fisac” 03 jan 2014, Archdaily, accessed 03 jan 2014. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=15293x>

Fisac, F. Arques Soler Fisac, F. Arques Soler

Fisac, F. Arques Soler Fisac, F. Arques Soler

El País

Flickr, Javier1949Es Por MadridFlickr, Javier1949

Architect: Miguel FisacLocation: Madrid, SpainProject year: 1965 - 1966References: Fisac, F. Arques Soler, Edificiones Pronaos, Madrid, 1996AD Classics: The Pagoda / Miguel Fisac, Fundación Miguel FisacPhotographs: Flickr, El País, Es Por Madrid