Church: The Latest Architecture and News

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unleashed a major humanitarian and refugee crisis, with 4.2 million people fleeing into neighbouring countries and 6.5 displaced internally. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), 18 million people are projected to become affected in the near future with the current scale and direction of the ongoing military violence. In addition to the threat to human lives, Ukraine’s culture is also at risk, as cities and historic buildings are being destroyed. In March, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has expressed concern over the damage caused to historic landmarks in Ukraine and called for the protection of its cultural heritage. The following are some of Ukraine’s most prominent architectural landmarks, which are now in danger of being destroyed amid the conflict.

Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava is rebuilding World Trade Center’s St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine in New York City. The church, which was destroyed during the 9/11 attacks, began its reconstruction process in 2015, and is finally reaching completion in 2022. The new structure's design is inspired by a mosaic of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, formerly the Church of Hagia Sophia, which was one of the fundamental factors in defining the original architecture of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

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Henning Larsen has won a competition to design Højvangen Church, the first church to be built in Skanderborg Parish in over 500 years. The new intervention, set to be completed and inaugurated by December 2024, will be a new public gathering point in the growing residential area of Højvangen in Skanderborg, Denmark.

Changtteul Church, is an old place of worship in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, that gets its name from the term "changtteul", meaning "a frame containing a window", in Korean. As its name suggests, the building's character lies in its series of windows, giving the visitors both outside and inside a unique experience of light and scenery.

Designers Hanyoung Jang and Hanjin Jang of studio minorormajor utilized the windows of Changtteul as a metaphorical motif for their design concept: the first being the 'window between man and God', and the second being ‘the window between man and nature’, immersing the abandoned religious facility with dramatic experiences.

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Rocco Design Architects created a vertical church, on a challenging site in Wan Chai District, Hong Kong. The Wesleyan House Methodist Church, with its 11,000m² program, sits on a tight 800m² plot, making it inevitable to go up and generate a skyscraper structure.

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Safdie Architects’ entry for the Abrahamic Family House competition located in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District, in Abu Dhabi, brings together a mosque, a synagogue, and a church within a shared public park.

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Adjaye Associates have been selected as the winners of The Abrahamic Family House competition, in Abu Dhabi. The landmark project, on Saadiyat Island, is a space where 3 religions will come together with the implementation of a mosque, a synagogue, and a church.

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Helsinki-based practice AOR have presented designs for a church in the Finnish town of Ylivieska which also doubles as a bridge spanning the Kalajoki River. The proposal, which was awarded a shared third prize in an open competition, intends to "revive the historical role of the church as a dominant building in the river landscape."

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In March 2016, the central church of Ylivieska, Finland, was destroyed in a fiery blaze, an act of arson that leveled the 18th-century wooden structure into a pile of ash.

Now, the community is set to start fresh with a brand new church designed by K2S Architects, after the Finnish firm was selected as the winners of a competition for the new Ylivieska Church.

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OOPEAA and Lujatalo worked together to design the winning proposal for a new multi-functional church and social housing project for Tikkurila, Helsinki entitled Church in the City. The project is unique in the way that the architect, builder, and client participated in a highly collaborative design process.

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