The new religious complex of Santa Chiara in Sini, capable of accommodating about two hundred worshippers, won in the year 2023 the Italian Architecture Prize 2023 promoted by Triennale Milano and MAXXI. The project“seeks in the adherence to the principles of the local housing culture its formal and symbolic reasons, according to a reflection that links territory, urban form, types and characters of the context” (cit.).
Its component volumes, the hall, baptistery, and bell tower are made of white concrete with only the corten housing for the bells inserted into the wall volume. With an interplay of solids and voids, the designers, through the control of spaces and volumes, relate the church, the ministry rooms and the open spaces of the churchyard, which are still unfinished.
The present St. Clare’s Church is the result of a troubled journey that began in the 1600s where the first building was a simple, west-facing aisle building with a reed and tile roof. The remains of the perimeter walls and the old bell tower are still visible. The church underwent disharmonious interventions over the centuries that led to an inconsistent organism demolished in 1944 to make way for the second church, which due to serious construction problems was demolished in 2012.
