The consecration ceremony is scheduled for Sunday.
The construction took 5 years, the competition was held three years earlier, in 1996; stars such as Tadao Ando, Gunther Benish, Santiago Calatrava, Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry took part in it.
Richard Mayer is proud to be the first Jewish architect to build a Catholic church. He was inspired by the churches of Alvar Aalto and the chapel in Ronchamp Le Corbusier.
The task of the international competition was the construction of the "Church of the Year 2000", "Church of the Jubilee". As a result, the process of constructing a new religious building was delayed, and was completed only now, in the fall of 2003.
An important urban planning role of the new church is that it will become a symbol and center for the development of a faceless sleeping area on the outskirts of Rome.
Its shape resembles a ship with three snow-white sails. These three curved planes are connected by glass walls that allow you to see "through" the structure.
Despite the fact that the inside of the church is filled with light, the direct rays of the sun do not enter it. Only on the day of the summer solstice in the afternoon, a single ray of sunlight falls through a small window into the interior of the temple and traces a cross on the floor.
