The Second Vatican Council and Ecclesiastical Architecture: Liturgy, Modernity, Memory

When Giovanni Muzio (1893-1982) began to deal with the design of the Church of the Annunciation, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) has not yet been announced and convoked; when the Basilica is finished and consecrated, in 1969, the Catholic Church is beginning the fulfillment of the theological achievements of the Council. The building of the church, therefore, crosses one of the most delicate periods of the history of the Catholic Church: in order to contextualize the meanings of the Basilica, we need to read the choices made by Muzio in the general frame of the debate about liturgical architecture in the years of the Council. The historiographical debate about catholic architecture of XXth Century discusses whether the Council could be considered a milestone not only for pastoral and social problems, but also for architecture: if the liturgical and ecclesiological reform changes the relationship between the Church and the secular world, literature underlines that the renewal of modern catholic architecture had already started in the Fifties. Muzio’s role is one of the most discussed topics, as his activity passes through different historical periods (the fascist era, the reconstruction of Italy after WWII, etc) and thorough different theological achievements and spiritualities, but also offering a personal interpretation of the liturgical space. A general frame of the different approaches about church design available in the years of the Council, is thus necessary to understand the dialectic between renewal and tradition in the period of the building of Nazareth’s Church. The design of the Basilica could also be considered the expression of more general cultural problems discussed the age of the Second Vatican Council: the relationship of communities with history and memory, the relationship between catholic globalized Church and local issues, the conflict between traditional spirituality and renewal of liturgy, the tension between the sacralization of the built memory (the “stones”) and the sanctification of the liturgical actions made by the worshippers. All these tension are considered by Muzio’s design through his personal experience, but also through the debate that animated some decades of experimental approaches preceding the Council.