Transformações Pós-Conciliares nas Igrejas Paroquiais de Sever do Vouga, Valbom e Figueiredo

Abstract

The presented work explores religious catholic architecture, focusing on the analysis of the transformation of three Portuguese parish churches which occurred after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It reflects the difficulty of intervening on the exterior spaces and the challenge of reorganizing the liturgic spaces. The importance of the Council as a driving force for the transformation of the liturgic space results in the renovation that the Church was hoping for, on multiple levels. It is possible to observe churches through all of Europe that present a new way of displaying the sacred space. Complementary documents, as well as posterior sources, point to the necessary architectural directives that identify with the celebrations of the catholic cult. In the search for examples that would display this renovation, this work proposes to make a compilation of constructions that suffered transformations in the post-Council period, namely in the Aveiro, Porto and Braga parishes. Three parish churches were selected that display the complexity of intervening and restoring churches that became examples of success in answering problems and challenges: the church of Sever do Vouga (1967), by the architects Fernando Abrunhosa de Brito and Manuel Magalhães; the church of Valbom (1973), in Gondomar, by the architect José Carlos Loureiro; and the church of Figueiredo (2004), in Braga, by the architect Paulo Providência. Through the global analysis of the churches, starting on the exterior and going through all the areas and constituting elements of their liturgic spaces, a relationship is established between the different architectural proposals and the Council and post-Council orientations, allowing the identification of many organizational trends for the spaces of the Christian Catholic cult, keeping up with the different types of interventions on built heritage.