St John Paul II Church, Páty

Architect: Robert Gutowski
Text: Tamás Kiss
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky
 
The church is located in the heart of the village, on a gently inclining neighbourhood surrounded by detached family houses built in the past few decades with a green-belt typology. As a composition, it strikes one as a building responding to the surrounding terrain with a balanced design. Although it is quite sizeable, it does not overwhelm its environment. With its low-built fence walls clad in rustic raw brick pierced at certain parts it impresses us with its safe appearance resembling fort-churches. The design of the tower set on the outer arch of the horizontal plan is sculpturesque despite its respectable dimensions: its form tapering towards the sky and its pierced openings – which are home to five bells – appears as a slender and yet characteristic component of the entire architecture. The floor-plan of the church is based on a design concept enriched with symbols of religion history: the garden and the broken line of the axis of the church space are a mediaeval metaphor of the broken human body. The church interior as the venue for liturgies is certainly the most attractive part of the building. Its sophisticated design is a result of several factors: the centrally organised sacred sphere features soft forms of ferroconcrete arranged by the architect on identical arches symmetrical to the central axis placed along a certain spatial curve that make up a translation surface. Designed with a refined logic, the arched ceiling structure is accentuated by piercings and light funnels through which the interior receives direct or reconnaisanced light.
 
Leading architect: Robert Gutowski
Architecture and interiors: Ákos Boczkó, Gáspár Bollók, Barnabás Dely-Steindl, Hunor László Kovács, István Kövér, Attila Révai, Béla Ákos Szokolay
Structure: Zoltán Klopka
Goldsmith: Csaba Ozsvári†
Sculptor: István Böjte Horváth
Garden: Attila Páll
HVAC: András Lantos
Electrical engineering: Gáspár Sándor
Fire protection: János Mészáros
Client: Székesfehérvári Egyházmegye, Spányi Antal megyéspüspök
The church was mad by the whole community