Joanna Gil-Mastalerczyk

Everyone functions within the area of the sacrum and the profanum, the material and non-material reality, having many meanings and interpretations and constituting an inherent field of human activity. While analysing a complicated network of relations and dependencies between the sacrum and the profanum, the intentionality of the location of locus sacer and its special demarcation in the architectural and urban area of the living environment of the 21st century was observed. It was demonstrated that designing a church in the contemporary commercialized world is not easy because its modern functionality requires the designer not only to consider the ideology, the vision of the church, tradition and biblical motives but also to highlight new methods of worship and state-of-the-art technological achievements. For that reason, contemporary sacrum significantly deviates from the traditional model of a shrine as presented in the analyses included in this article. The special and functional concept covered with the research shows this diversity and design methods highlight the architectural values and the dimension of locus sacer. This article supplements the research focused in this paper on analyses of the sacrum created in a new housing district in Freiburg, Germany.

Architectural and urban, functional and spatial solutions for living space are based on actions focused on human needs. In addition to many other aspects, sacred space or locus sacer (its function, form and conceptual contents) as a publicly dedicated place of worship in which one can contact the sacrum is particularly important in human living and functioning space. The article presents sacrum from the cultural perspective, on the materialized and symbolical plane with some references to the contemporary architectural practice, with an analysis of the innovative approach and metaphors while building new forms of the changing Catholic Church of the 21st century. Thanks to their characteristic structure, they play the role of a significant spatial and functional determinant supporting the identification, integration and the sense of belonging to the community of places and constitute special space perceived as an asylum promoting a good relation and appropriate organisation of the housing environment. In this context, the research was focused on developments located in completely different housing areas: a hybrid megalopolis (the city-state Singapore) and, as a sign of another topic and analyses supplementing the comprehensive presentation, a new housing district of a small European city (Freiburg, Germany).

Looking at Le Corbusier’s works one cannot fail to notice how his drawings and paintings transformed into architectural projects to become the foundations for new objects, including the sculpted forms of sanctuaries which have a permanent place in the tradition of sacred architecture. He centered his original ideas on visions of his works which he put down on paper in an unconstrained manner as sketches and drawings. Le Corbusier proved that drawing and painting can be used as support for and in collaboration with the architectural design process in pursuit of an architecture that would satisfy the user’s need for aesthetic value and appeal to their senses. He introduced the two into the design process leaving behind abundant documentation.