Junipero Serra Shrine Competition

In Architecture

Posted: Aug 17th, 2009 / Last Edited: Jun 1st, 2010 Print

Description

This project has broad cultural implications related to the historic California region, with several major local cultures metaphorically converging in this proposal for a shrine on this site: the Catholic Church as it has been rooted in Hispanic society; Chinese culture and Japanese culture as manifest in neighboring Chinatown and Japantown; and the indigenous Native American culture. The design for the shrine is therefore based on powerful human forces. Although small in size, this project for a shrine extends its influence well beyond its immediate site, conveying broad urban implications. The initial framework begins with the landscape, an embracing wall that invokes the qualities of a sanctuary (shelter, nurturing, stability, and loving embraces), and an earthen mound with its multivalent allusions to domed cathedral ceilings, Native American mounds, Buddhist stupas, and the fertile California landscape. The embracing wall clearly defines inside and outside as separate ontological and metaphorical places. At the same time it both protects the shrine and draws one toward it. Inside the wall is the earthen mound, planted with the magnificence and simplicity reminiscent of the land as Father Serra first found it: a simple mix of native California oaks, grasses, and poppies. The mound has the added function of insulating the site from the distracting sounds of the adjacent freeway. Outside the wall is a densely planted combination of native and imported species, metaphorically integrating the European influence on the native landscape.

The architectural language of the shrine itself reinterprets several aspects of the hybrid regional vocabulary that developed here. Among these are: thick walls (for thermal irregular shapes, tranquil sacred gardens, bells in a low campanario, and the indigenous materials and building craft of “crude perfection.” The shape of the shrine’s roof is derived from the traditional vaulted construction of basilical roofs. The shrine’s main interior space is found below grade, unexpectedly coherent in the plan’s figure of a generic rectangle.

Natural light illuminates the interior and also connects visitors to significant moments in time; shafts of light enter the space through apertures punctuating the wall at specific times and dates of Christian Feast days, major holidays, and days significant to the history of Serra (September 3, April 16, and the 19th of each month). In this way, light, earth, and a re-configured ground make the shrine a place both of the landscape and of the area’s hybrid culture.
This project has broad cultural implications related to the historic California region, with several major local cultures metaphorically converging in this proposal for a shrine on this site: the Catholic Church as it has been rooted in Hispanic society; Chinese culture and Japanese culture as manifest in neighboring Chinatown and Japantown; and the indigenous Native American culture. The design for the shrine is therefore based on powerful human forces. Although small in size, this project for a shrine extends its influence well beyond its immediate site, conveying broad urban implications. The initial framework begins with the landscape, an embracing wall that invokes the qualities of a sanctuary (shelter, nurturing, stability, and loving embraces), and an earthen mound with its multivalent allusions to domed cathedral ceilings, Native American mounds, Buddhist stupas, and the fertile California landscape. The embracing wall clearly defines inside and outside as separate ontological and metaphorical places. At the same time it both protects the shrine and draws one toward it. Inside the wall is the earthen mound, planted with the magnificence and simplicity reminiscent of the land as Father Serra first found it: a simple mix of native California oaks, grasses, and poppies. The mound has the added function of insulating the site from the distracting sounds of the adjacent freeway. Outside the wall is a densely planted combination of native and imported species, metaphorically integrating the European influence on the native landscape.

The architectural language of the shrine itself reinterprets several aspects of the hybrid regional vocabulary that developed here. Among these are: thick walls (for thermal irregular shapes, tranquil sacred gardens, bells in a low campanario, and the indigenous materials and building craft of “crude perfection.” The shape of the shrine’s roof is derived from the traditional vaulted construction of basilical roofs. The shrine’s main interior space is found below grade, unexpectedly coherent in the plan’s figure of a generic rectangle.

Natural light illuminates the interior and also connects visitors to significant moments in time; shafts of light enter the space through apertures punctuating the wall at specific times and dates of Christian Feast days, major holidays, and days significant to the history of Serra (September 3, April 16, and the 19th of each month). In this way, light, earth, and a re-configured ground make the shrine a place both of the landscape and of the area’s hybrid culture.
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