© 2025 beautell arquitectos
© 2025 beautell arquitectos
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The current Church of Alcalá rises where an old hermitage once stood, demolished in 2011 to the sorrow of its parishioners. In the years that followed, amid economic hardship, the local community—led by their parish priest—fought to bring back a place of worship. In 2017, we were commissioned to design a new church that could both recall the memory of the lost hermitage and respond to the needs of a growing town.
The project embraces this duality by articulating two volumes: one that reinterprets the former hermitage, its scale and position evoking a collective memory, and another that seeks verticality—like a flame—culminating in a skylight over the altar. These two bodies, while distinct, are united in a single interior space, forming a symbolic bridge between past and present, between rooted tradition and open modernity.
Material simplicity defines the church’s character. Whitewashed cyclopean concrete, recalling traditional Canarian techniques, contrasts with the ochre-toned concrete of the newer volume, both subtly textured by hand. Natural light and raw surfaces shape a space that aspires to the essential. Dedicated to the Virgin of Candelaria, the patron saint of the Canary Islands, the church is less a replacement than a continuation—a quiet reflection on how memory and modern architecture can inhabit the same space.