Parish Church Complex “Resurrezione di Nostro Signore”

By Francesco Pagliari - 1 November 2019

The parish church complex known as the Resurrezione di Nostro Signore is located in Varignano, an outlying neighborhood of Viareggio - a well-known seaside resort on Italy’s Tuscan coast. Cut off from its urban center by highways and railway tracks, Varignano enjoys few of the attractions of the rest of the town.

This parish complex stands on the site of the previous 1970s church whose physical decay in just a few decades, along with its functional inadequacy, prompted the decision to start from scratch with an entirely new construction. It was also decided that it would be the result of a participative process in consultation with users and neighborhood residents.

This experimental approach was included in the competition brief. As a result, as well as an architectural project for a new church, the program also had to enable activities relevant to the wider community, embody social as well as religious values, and be a focus of community identity pertinent to contemporary living in a peripheral quarter.

The competition was won by TAMassociati in 2015. The
pre-existing parish church and buildings, of little architectural note, were demolished and the new complex broke ground in 2018. The church was inaugurated with a highly symbolic ceremony in June 2019.

As well as a religious complex continuing the mission of the former building, the new architecture is also imbued with a new ecological awareness. The program combines rational use of resources and materials and also took into account future maintenance requirements.

As well as a Catholic place of worship, the structures make available a wide range of social and civic functions, combining the church’s pastoral activities with opportunities for the community as a whole to come together. This, and the reference to the simplicity of the former structure allow the new architecture to embody a wider sense of community and carry a memory of its...