A ermida do Cristo do Silêncio

Abstract

The present text faces methodologically the research process that gained form and expression with the registration, in 2008, of a PhD thesis program, submitted to the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, under the title: «Liturgy and architecture. Thinking a place for the liturgy: the aggiornamento as a program? » The circumstance of a theoretical reflection that developed at the same time of the project exercise would consolidate the need to articulate both processes. In a sense, one could say that the project gained – as a synthesis of a process of materialization of ideas, isolated in the research - the condition of object of study. The project of the «Christ of silence chapel» dealt with the same set of questions: how are architecture and liturgy inseparable and convergent in the project of a return to the originality of the Christian place? Moreover, how does this condition manifest itself in the process of the architectural project of a vacated space to welcome, all who seek recollection and the celebration of the liturgy?