31 March 2014
Twenty-three interiors of churches built after the Second Vatican Council, concluded in 1965, all of them designed from the viewpoint of the officiant facing the congregation. Vatican Il decided that the priest should celebrate Mass facing versus populum, establishing a direct relationship with “the people” during the service. A change whose significance, in the photographs of Giorgio Barrera and Niccolò Rastrelli, is amplified by contemporary works of architecture in which the place of worship has been reconsidered, diverging from the various traditions that have followed one another down the centuries. Above and beyond the differences between the buildings, which include ones designed by Massimiliano Fuksas, Gio Ponti and Mario Botta, the contemporary Catholic church is presented in these images devoid of the solemnity or the mysticism evoked by so much ecclesiastic architecture of the past. In part transformed by the faces that populate its spaces, in part oriented toward an essentiality that makes the moment of prayer almost invisible, the churches in Andate in Pace reflect the many ways in which the image of a community of the faithful is changed on the basis of the architecture that houses it.
Giorgio Barrera e Niccolò Rastrelli, Andate in Pace (Go in Peace)
Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione
A cura di Daniele De Luigi
Roma
14 marzo – 24 aprile 2014
Andate in Pace, Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio, Taranto. Venerdì, ore 17:02.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa della Sacra Famiglia, Salerno. Giovedì, ore 19:00.
Andate in pace, Chiesa di Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque, Roma. Sabato, ore 18:33.
Andate in Pace, Santuario dell’Amore Misericordioso, Collevalenza. Sabato, ore 17:37.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa dello Spirito Santo, Napoli. Domenica, ore 9:39.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa di San Nicolao della Flue, Milano. Domenica, ore 11:02.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa della Madonna della Speranza, Gallarate. Sabato, ore 18:02.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa di San Paolo, Foligno. Domenica, ore 11:08.
Andate in Pace, Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista, Firenze. Domenica, ore 11:59.