Type and memory. Tools for religious architecture of Rafael Moneo

Rafael Moneo approaches religious architecture in the maturity of his career. Uses type as a starting point, and relies on its manipulation as a design tool, and draws upon his reminiscence of sacred space, his memories of the best religious architecture. With the first process places the building in site and organizes its operation. In the second, tries to give character to space, very important in these cases so that the churchgoers can be identified with the building. The architectures of the past, Byzantine, Gothic cathedrals, Baroque, and more recent references, as Bryggman, Scarpa, and mainly Ronchamp Chapel. In religious architecture of Rafael Moneo the issues that have been important throughout his career are present. So attention to the specific constraints of the site where the oeuvre is located, the integration of architectural history with new disciplines and kinds of construction, consideration on the type and establishing symbiosis between treatment of the light and the materiality of the building.