The geometry of the church of Hrajel recapitulates in abstraction the fundamentals of theology as well as those of the patrimonial Maronite architecture. Its sculptural form stimulates the processional ascent of the community through the rocky site and towards the Altar flooded by light.
While the first proposal intervened as a development of the existing patrimonial church (Our Lady of Hrajel), the second proposal was planned for a new rocky land beside the village. There we operated a shift in the architectural language, tackling the solid character of the rock in a pioneering, prismatic, sculptural attempt that captures the genius loci of the site, while recapitulating all the semiotics of Maronite church architecture in abstract but expressive forms. This project allowed us to extend our research on the language of church architecture, and the possibility of exploring one for the 21st century, while remaining in the continuity of church traditions, volumes, and symbols.
The clean cut volumes stem from the rock to modulate the site with plain reinforced concrete masses that form and define the different spatial components: from the gathering area outside (a form of parvis), through the narthex, to the processional approach through the nave, a processional character amplified in the screenplay of light and shade, towards the altar. The volumetric composition announces the development of this oriented axis, as a regulator of the geometry. The horizontal axis is opposed in a contrapuntal gesture by the vertical pillar of the bell, which stands as a landmark mainly for its ability to evocate the spiritual dimension, but also stands as a pivotal turning point that orients the assembly, from the parvis area to the narthex.
The nave, shouldered by integrated side aisles, is staged in a progressive geometry, culminating in a strip of light that bears the symbolic meaning of the spiritual path as guidance for the Ecclesia. This path of light culminates in an abstract but complex composition standing for a dome of light, not in the traditional spherical form of the domes, but as an ideogram deciphering the mystery of the Trinity, once compared by Saint Augustine to three Suns diffusing the same Light. By analogy to this thought, three entities, squarish in form (The Square is the sign of the world, through which we could grasp the Mystery of the Divine), volumetric and imbricated into one entity, project the profile of three intersecting Squares on the altar, as if the Divine vivificates the mystery of transubstantiation when wine and bread metamorphose in the spiritual body of Christ. Architecture embodies the liturgy, contributing to the climax of its emotional evocation.
