Description

Situated on a plateau high above Lago Maggiore and the town of Brissago, the village of Porta has had an oratory since the Middle Ages. It enjoys a position at the edge of a slope overlooking the lake, forcing the road to bend around the building. Despite its inescapable presence in the village, the chapel fell into an increasingly derelict state until, in the mid-nineties, the parish decided to demolish it and replace it with a new building. As with its predecessor, the new oratory is very prominent. Nevertheless, the relationship of the object to the texture of its environment attempts to strengthen the spatial coherence of its surroundings.

The chapel has a rigorously geometric form. It is a cube of 9.1 by 9.1 by 8.1 metres. The columns and beams, uniformly made of 50 centimetre thick concrete, define not only the edges of the box but also its interior. The framework divides the box into eight volumes, four below and four above. From the bend in the road, the chapel is visible as a hollow frame. Steps lead up to a covered “forecourt” occupying half of the cube, with a glass-block roof. The space for prayer lies to the rear. Here, the exterior of the panels of the concrete framework are stacked with flat slabs of rough-hewn grey granite. One enters through a stepped portal into the oratory itself, which is divided into two halves, one for the laity and one for the priests.

Three slots allow light into the interior. These slice through the concrete and granite envelope of the other half of the cube – two in the walls, one in the ceiling, two vertical, one horizontal, arranged tightly against the east, south and west faces – are made in such a way that the light glances across the surface of the smooth concrete of the structural framework and the rough concrete infill, an effect that is particularly pronounced in the mornings and the evenings. A slight threshold on the floor made of black slate marks the edge of the zone with the altar, ambo and three concrete seats. The pews arranged around the walls can seat some 20 people and are faced with cherry wood seating surfaces. A small sacristy is tucked away at the rear of the chapel, and a section of wall from the previous oratory with a fresco depicting the Annunciation is mounted on the outside wall facing the slope.

The geometry of the oratory in Porta is not arbitrary. Rather, the relationship between the closed and open sections reflects the duality of the public and the sacred. This half-half division between internal and external space is a common trait of sacred architecture in the Ticino region. The chapel establishes a dialogue with the churches Santi Pietro e Paolo and Madonna di Ponte in Brissago. The pilasters that delineate the space of these churches, designed in the 16th century by Giovanni and Pietro Beretta, are echoed by the gridded framework of the oratory in Porta. Also evident in the chapel is the influence of the reduced forms of minimal art, in particular the structural sculptures by Sol LeWitt.

Bamberg, Thomas, Pellandini, Paola: Tessin Architektur. Die junge Generation, Munich 2004, pp. 118- | Baumeister, no. 6/1999, pp. 22- | Raffaele Cavadini Architetto. Opere dal 1987-2001, exhibition catalogue, (n.p.) Münsingen (n.d.) 2003, pp. 38-, p. 63 | Chiesa Oggi, no. 42/2000, pp. 33- | Deutsche Bauzeitung, no. 7/1999, pp. 64- | Gantenbein, Köbi (Ed.): Bauen in der Schweiz. Ein Führer zur Gegenwartsarchitektur, Zurich 2002, pp. 180- | Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Schweizer Ausgabe, 3. 4. 1998, p. 77 | The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture, Comprehensive Edition, London 2004, p. 523 | Stock, Wolfgang Jean: Architectural Guide Sacred Buildings in Europe since 1950, Munich 2004, frontispice, pp. 262- | Werk, Bauen und Wohnen, no. 7/8/1998, pp. 42-

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Originally published in: Rudolf Stegers, Sacred Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2008.