Santa Maria Assunta ("Assumption of Mary") is a Catholic church located in Riola di

Vergato Vergato ( Medial Mountain Bolognese: or ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about southwest of Bologna. Vergato borders the following municipalities: Castel d'Aiano, ...

, northern Italy. It was designed by Finnish modernist architect Alvar Aalto.

History

Design on the project began in 1965–66. The Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal

Giacomo Lercaro Giacomo Lercaro (28 October 1891 – 18 October 1976) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Ravenna from 1947 to 1952, and Archbishop of Bologna from 1952 to 1968. Pope Pius XII made him a cardinal ...

secured Aalto's participation upon seeing his work in an exhibition in Florence at the

Palazzo Strozzi Palazzo Strozzi is a palace in Florence, Italy. History The construction of the palace was begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to the city in November 1466 and desired the ...

. Lercaro had also commissioned architects

Kenzo Tange is a common masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Kenzō can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *賢三, "wise, three" *健三, "healthy, three" *謙三, "humble, three" *健想, "healthy, concept" *建造, "bu ...

and Le Corbusier to design churches in his domain. Because both Aalto and Lercaro died in 1976, and only some portions of the project masterplan were completed, this work could be considered posthumous. Riola3

Construction began in 1975. The church was consecrated in 1978. The Campanile was completed as late as 1993.

Architecture

The church is structured by six asymmetric

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term ...

concrete frames, or arches in descending size towards the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

. They support a series of

light scoops, which are

conic section In mathematics, a conic section, quadratic curve or conic is a curve obtained as the intersection of the surface of a cone with a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a spe ...

s, giving the church its distinctive exterior profile, which some liken to an abstraction of the local Apennine mountains. The facades are faced with mortared stone, and the roof is copper sheeting. The interior is mostly whitewashed plaster, which advantageously reflects northern light brought in from the scoops above. Wooden

pew A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirt ...

s, each slightly shorter in length than the preceding one as they approach the chancel are placed on the

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

tile floors. The

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

is unadorned and hewn from a single block of marble. The

tabernacle According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle ( he, מִשְׁכַּן, mīškān, residence, dwelling place), also known as the Tent of the Congregation ( he, link=no, אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד, ’ōhel mō‘ēḏ, also Tent of Meeting, etc.), ...

was also designed by Aalto, although it is not in its original location. A slightly sunken

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' has ...

baptistery In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...

is appended to the northwest corner of the church, that has a large

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

al skylight placed over the baptismal font as well as a vertical slit window viewing the river

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

, which flows by the church to the north. Riola di Vergato model

The architecture references both the distinctive light fixtures Aalto designed as well as his bent plywood furniture produced by his company Artek.

References

External links

Archinform.net
{{coord, 44.2293, N, 11.0546, E, source:wikidata, display=title Churches in the province of Bologna Alvar Aalto buildings Alvar Aalto churches Roman Catholic churches completed in 1978 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Christian organizations established in 1978