READING BETWEEN THE LINES | TRANSPARENT CHURCH
Have you seen a Transparent Church before?
Western Churches are often solemn, having dark interior, opaque and with only one natural light source from the stained glass. It is to give the church a calm and faithful ambience so that the occupants are able to focus on worshiping the God. However, there is a church in Belgium made of horizontal layers of steel, more importantly, it is transparent, you can see through it!
The transparent church is a collaboration between young Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs (Leuven, 1983) and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh (Leuven, 1983). The design of the church is based on the architecture of the multitude of churches in the region, but through the use of horizontal plates, the concept of the traditional church is transformed into a transparent object of art. It is slightly smaller than life-sized piece, consists of 30 tons of steel and 2000 columns, and is built on a fundament of armed concrete. Due to its transparency, and depending on the perspective of the viewer, the church is either experienced as a massive building, or dissolves (partially or completely) into the landscape.
Viewers will witness the play of lines that reshapes the surrounding landscape through the overlapping layers of voids and the sun came from the outflow vent. In this way, church and landscape can both be considered part of the work. Hence, it is well explained by its title “Reading between the lines” which implies to read between the lines. In other words: the church makes the subjective experience, an unexpected visual experience of the landscape and vice versa.
The rusted red colour of the steel blends the site into the winter landscape and which in the sunlight, with the time change, different types of shadow of the church will formed. The ray of sunshine pouring is visualized as a general prayer shine.
Looking from the inside
Looking from the outside
Viewer can clearly see the interior of the church. The 10 meters high church has adopted a very special building structure, the 100 layers of steel built without walls that having "transparent" as the theme.
Therefore, from no matter from what point of view, the viewers are able to see what is happening in the church for instance, people are faithfully worshipping the God.
The transparent building is well-deserved amazing works in both religion and art. However, the church seems to function in order to have a better visual experience but it does not a satisfactory role in terms of traditional functions. The visitor’s attention are gripped by the building design itself but not its original function, a sacred place to worship the God. Maybe it can be explained that the Architects said the main purpose of the construction of the church is to give people the sense of beauty. Nonetheless, it somehow reflects the lack of scarcity and the religious beliefs in this place.
Sometimes we often think that we have seen the whole thing, but from another angle is not true.
