Description

Even if they do not necessarily reach up high into the sky from the centre, Maltese churches always occupy a prominent position within the precincts of the villages. This is also the case in Manikata, a small village in the far north of the island. Strangely reminiscent of the appearance of a submarine, Saint Joseph’s Church seems to float, with its low, rounded, never­ hard forms, on a hill on the outskirts of the settlement. The yellowish rendered building stands 76 metres above sea level. It is 7.6 metres high and occupies an artificial terrace, which is enclosed by a splayed encircling wall. One enters the 63 metre long plateau via three sets of steps from the south or the west. A few rocks lie on the pebbly ground; two sculptures, some seating and a bell tower invite one to stop and rest.

Passing a wall slab and through a portico, visitors are drawn into a passageway that turns to the right, continuing on beyond the wooden door. In the interior of the church the eye is led along the wall and further to the right. The entire progression, a half-circle from inside to outside, leads to its objective, a full view of the altar at the end of the north-south axis between the pews. Not until this moment can one perceive the plan of the building, which is in the form of two figures, each a “U” with extended legs, each like a conch and each 13.5 metres across.

Standing opposite instead of next to one another and moreover arranged slightly offset, the two spaces serve the lay person and the priest, respectively. The wall behind the hardwood pews, which accommodate 140 people, contains a confessional on its west and east sides. Fourteen abstract sculptures hang within the north curve, signifying Jesus Christ’s Way of the Cross. Altar and ambo are made of limestone; fresh water runs into the font. Though only one step up, the presbytery is somewhat theatrical: between the altar table and the rear wall stands the “stage set”, a man-high wall of brown rough stone blocks with a white niche for the tabernacle, and stones hang from the concrete ceiling like the fringe of a curtain that is just opening. To provide daylight there are skylights and windows; strips of glass at the junction between the two conches.

Malta’s indigenous architecture, displaced for centuries by the numerous foreign rulers of the island, was first rediscovered in the 20th century. For example­ the ca.5000 year old temple that was probably dedicated to a mother earth goddess, since its design – a “U” with two opposing chambers – resemble the form of an enormous uterus. Or the “Girna”, a low, curved dry-stone structure, which farmers still use today as a shed. Designed at the beginning of the sixties, Saint Joseph’s Church makes reference above all to this specifically Maltese cultural identity: an example of “critical regionalism” before the expression was coined.

Abel, Chris: Manikata Church 1962-1974. Richard England, London 1995 | Architecture and Urbanism, no. 10/1981, pp. 15- | Architettura e spazio sacro nella modernità, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1992, p. 255 | Chiesa Oggi, no. 6/1993, pp. 46- | Richard England. The Spirit of Place, Milan 1998, pp. 23- | England, Richard, Schubert, Linda: Transfigurations. Places of Prayer, Melfi 2000, p. 8, p. 15, pp. 56-, p. 78 | Heathcote, Edwin: Richard England, Chichester 2002, pp. 24- | Heathcote, Edwin, Spens, Iona: Church Builders, London 1997, pp. 109- | Henvaux, Emile: The Work of Architect Richard England in Malta. A Research towards a Contemporary Regionalism. With Introductory Notes on the Maltese Vernacular, Brussels 1969, pp. 100- | Knevitt, Charles: Manikata. The Making of a Church, Manikata 1980 | Knevitt, Charles: Connections. The Architecture of Richard England 1964-1984, London 1984, pp. 86- | Krafft, Anthony (Ed.): Architecture Contemporaine, Vol. 2 1980/1981, Paris and Lausanne 1980, pp. 125

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