Liturgical Construction for the Meeting of the Pope Benedict XVI., Zagreb

The first architectural assignment was the project of liturgical construction for the meeting of the Pope Benedict XVI. with the youth on Ban Jelačić Square. Since this is urbanistically a strongly defined context, the assignment was complex. The architectonic approach used the contrasting method in keeping with the default context. The contrast was achieved with white and dynamic shape. However, the spatial disposition of the construct established the relationship Kaptol – Cathedral and Ban Jelačić Square. The space for the watch was positioned on the eastern part of the Square which opened a view toward the Cathedral. In that way the sacral space of the city (Zagreb Cathedral) were contemplatively and spatially connected with the profane space of the city (the main city square).

The architectonic solution of the liturgical space for the watch of Pope Benedict XVI with the youth tried to express the basic theological Christian concept – human life as complex existence beyond the exclusive concreteness of everyday life. Thus the flow of a person’s life with its weight and unpredictability is symbolically showed with anfractuous rising and descending ramp, and the vertical broken mass symbolically shows the aspiration in a person’s everyday conduct with the world to attain authentic ontological possibility of rotating the horizontal existential plane into a vertical one. The Holy Spirit, in Christianity perceived as transforming force on a person’s life path, is traditionally shown with white dove, and it was here shaped with a ‘floating’ console element.
This project tried also to resume the entire encumbrance of the symbolism of certain liturgical places. Thus the altar, as the center of the liturgical, in linear dynamics related to the altar of the Word, the light of Eastern candle and the Manduševec fountain as spring of life water. The linear order with clear spatial hierarchical differentiation: Water, Light, Word and Altar ends up with ‘dove’, symbol of the Holy Spirit, according upon which all elements receive richness of symbolic meaning. The direction towards the altar is emphasized by the access staircase. The idea of road is articulated on the longitudinal axis of the composition, while the linking of liturgical places is articulated by the transversal axis of the architectonic composition. Subject of architectonic shaping was also the design of liturgical furniture that was made in line with the architectural design.
The second project was project of liturgical construction for the central jubilation mass of Pope Benedict XVI at the hippodrome. The architectonic concept of liturgical space at the hippodrome tried to express the principal idea for the meeting with the Pope, the motto of which was ‘together in Christ’. The architectonic shaping tried to stylistically interpret the theme of hands as symbol of communion. Thus one ‘hand’ is positioned vertically, and the other horizontally. The idea of communion comes into being through the stylistically interpreted ‘hands’, but the hands also functionally shape the liturgical places. The vertical hand connects the cross, the cathedra and the altar, emphasizing these liturgical places, and the ‘floating’ hand functions as an overhang for the bishops who participate in the jubilation mass. It symbolically expresses the liturgical epicletic gesture paraphrasing the Christian theme of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. With both their compositional tension and dynamics, the ‘hands’ shape the altar space and direct the believers towards the altar, creating the focal point in the wide space of the hippodrome. Contrapuntal to the horizontal composition is the tall white cross. In this project the liturgical furniture was also subject to the architectonic shaping: the altar, the ambone and sedesi.