The church of Jesus the Redeemer, inaugurated in May 2008, was designed by the Milanese architect Mauro Galantino, winner of the national competition organized by the Italian Episcopal Conference to qualify religious architecture. The project, designed between 2001 and 2005, has given rise to a structure, an example of the minimalist expression of contemporary Italian architecture, which can now offer the parish - about 14,000 inhabitants - and the city the largest church in the diocese of Modena.
Outside, the whole conveys a feeling of beauty and mysticism. The bell tower, together with the body of the church and the large churchyard, creates the place of the community, welcoming the city, placing it in the state of interest and in the perception of the architectural elements-threshold: facade, narthex, portal, which suggest the welcome and the encounter with God, rather than monumentality. Simple but skilful construction lines create plays of light, volumes and levels, accentuated by the contrast of natural stone with the shining white, which gives prestige to the complex, thanks to the use of a type of cement "self-cleaning", able to withstand the smog and the weather.
The combination of linear stone surfaces and transparent facades communicates serenity to the visitor; the zenithal light and the large windows allow the entrance of abundant natural light, enhancing the geometric shapes, combined with selected natural materials and essential furniture. A "crown of light" in the highest perimeter area surrounds the assembly space, symbolically connecting it to the sky, emphasizing the ascending value of the walls down to the great sail of the false ceiling, which dematerializes the structural importance of the roof.
Open-air areas, visible only from the inside, surprise the eye: the olive grove, which like an apse dilates the space behind the altar, and the large fountain, on the opposite side, which also symbolically connects the place of baptism to the chapel where the tabernacle is kept.
The liturgical arrangement, the result of research that has taken into account the lessons of modern architects and the ancient tradition of the church, highlights the assembly. The assembly is not only directed towards the altar, like a stage, but one half to the other, arranging itself on the long sides of an ellipse, which has the Word as its fire (low ambo for the biblical word, high for the Gospel, in a drafting that monumentalizes the Word and reintroduces the icon of the mountain, at the foot and above which one speaks) and the Sacrifice (altar: a square of 4 m on the side raised by 45 cm with four accesses). The Eucharistic community can thus be the subject and object of prayer, thus suggesting the full and humble authority of the mystical body of Christ.
The weekday chapel, accessible from the hall and from the outside, concludes the access route and the transition between churchyard, portal, source, axis of the celebration (ambo and altar), giving the Eucharistic reserve as the destiny of the route.
The large complex includes the Parish Works and the House of Charity, the latter visible sign of Charity in the parish and destined to become a seed of citizenship, a stimulus in the network with other initiatives and preparation to welcome the poor of future generations.
The simple style, the skilful use of light, the multiple spatial relationships, the design and structure, the quality of the materials, more important than any form of decoration or ornament, without concessions to comfort or unnecessary evocations, make the complex of Jesus the Redeemer a work that presents itself with a language that can surprise, excite and capture the visitor, as well as speak to contemporary architectural research.
Works of art
In the church of Jesus the Redeemer there is a pictorial cycle of the Dutch artist Bert van Zelm (Amsterdam 1955), whose works, in sketch, were part of the project of the architect Galantino, winner of the competition of the CEI.
The cycle includes:
- the Madonna with child and the poor, in the hall, on the south wall, above the low window that lets you see the water of the fountain outside;
- the Crucifix, in the hall, on the north wall, left above the stained-glass window behind the altar;
- Via Charitatis, 14 silk-screened glass panels on the north wall of the olive grove, representing the stations of passion according to the Gospel of John;
- the Pieta, a triptych that occupies the entire north wall of the working-class chapel, on the left entering from the classroom
In a renewed amazement at the Incarnation, van Zelm's painting - whose references include Rembrandt and Caravaggio - proposes a divine pictorially impregnated with material, almost physically present, a divine marvellous and powerful precisely because it is close to the human, capable of inhabiting and transforming it, also assuming its limits and restlessness.