The Church of Cristo Re in Cagliari, 1952–1963, G. Genta and S. Panzarasa: Tradition and Modernity in the Architecture of the Central Sacred Space

Abstract

The church of Cristo Re (Fig. 1) in Cagliari, 1952–1963, by G. Genta and S. Panzarasa, is a centralized temple erected for the titular congregation of nuns that would also serve for the religious services of the neighborhood of the urban expansion experienced in the Monte Urpino area. It is a work with some novelties of the modern movement compounding the revisions of the middle of the century, but is rooted in the Catholic typologies of the hexagonal plan and reinterprets the symbolism of the roof as a star in the sky, for which it adopts baroque perspective strategies. Born as the ‘Sacro Cuore’ church, the project was developed by young graduates in Rome in 1946 who were recommended by A. Libera, who would imbue them in the management of the golden proportions. It is a hybrid building which in fact modernizes languages, forms, liturgy, structure and materials thanks to the emerging organic architecture, and at the same time conscious of tradition: centrality of the sacred space, vertical axis to the cosmos and demanding geometry, as well as its canonical orientation. In short: a modern diaphanous sacred space enclosed in a somewhat expressionist volume, but, in essence, Classical and Mediterranean.