Maranatha Moluccan Church

Rudolf Stegers

Description

The trapezium shaped site has two almost 60 metre long sides and its position is totally imprisoned by surrounding blocks of flats. The situation and house of the Moluccan parish community avoids being typically religious and resembles a children’s day centre or a youth club. As such, the grounds and church are like an oasis, a paradise in alien surroundings. This impression stems from the transformation of the grounds into a garden. The elongated building stands diagonally on the site. The upper curved parts of the façade are clad in vertical wooden slats, the lower parts, not only the curved but also the upright elements are enclosed by a metal trellis, on which white roses climb up a matt blue background.

On each side, the garden leads up to the canopies and entrances to the north and south, descending thereafter three steps down into a roughly 15.5 metre long entrance lobby. The plan of the low building is, at its centre, the shape of a not quite perfect square, which nonetheless permits a clear separation between the parts designated for secular and religious uses. The ancillary spaces lie to the east, including an assembly hall, a kitchen and two offices; the space on the west side is for church services.

Opening a sliding door presents one with a view of the concrete structure with eight cylindrical supports and numerous longitudinal and lateral beams that describe the figures, under the roof, of a square, a rotated square and an octagon. Although the spatial impression created by the structure seems at first to be symmetrical, closer inspection reveals that the architecture is not quite perfect, and is missing the corners to the west and south. This “flaw”, together with the tension of the offset altar and pulpit, produce a “multiple symmetry”, in which half of the chairs relate to the altar, and half to the pulpit, by which centrifugal and centripetal energies struggle to achieve the correct balance. The wall elements stand outside the structure; their concave forms are covered with a colour that changes intensity in three layers from deep to light blue. Concealed rooflights illuminate the niches. With the steadfastness of the structure and the ephemeral and marginal quality of the bright wall sections, one imagines to be in a tent, on an island, the blue of the sea and the sky in the distance. The lines of mother-of-pearl pressed into the plaster make one think of the flight of birds and the passage of fish; the work of Iene Ambar underlines the boundless feel of the building.

The Maranatha Moluccan Church is an expression of the equal importance of the rationalist and the expressionist architecture of the 20th century so typical of structuralism. Furthermore, it expresses a reverence of the Moluccans, the group of islands between the Philippines and Australia that was once a Dutch colony. The shells came from there. The structure resembles that of a “baileo”, the open-sided assembly buildings of the village communities on the Moluccans.

Bibliography

Archis, no. 2/1993, pp. 17- | De Architect, no. 12/1992, pp. 52- | The Architectural Review, no. 1/1985, cover, pp. 14- and no. 4/1992, pp. 46- | L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, no. 235/1984, pp. 21- | Bergeijk, Herman van, Máčel, Otakar: Birkhäuser Architekturführer. Belgien Niederlande Luxemburg. 20. Jahrhundert, Basel 1998, p. 180 | Broeksma, Friso (Ed. et al.): Architectuur in Nederland. Jaarboek 1992/1993, Rotterdam 1993, pp. 54- | Casabella, no. 517/1985, pp. 12- and no. 605/1993, pp. 60-, pp. 70-71 | Groenendijk, Paul, Vollaard, Piet: Architectuurgids Nederland 1900-2000, Rotterdam 2006, pp. 110 | Ligtelijn, Vincent (Ed.): Aldo van Eyck. Werke, Basel 1999, pp. 220- | Niet om het even, wel evenwaardig. Van en over Aldo van Eyck, Amsterdam (n.d.) 1986, pp. 148- | Strauven, Francis: Aldo van Eyck. The Shape of Relativity, Amsterdam 1998, pp. 598- | Techniques et Architecture, no. 405/1992, pp. 64-