The Unbuilt Inmaculado Corazón de María

A 1910 proposal for the Inmaculado Corazón de María, designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Josep Goday i Casals for a site in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I came across the above image recently, and it really caught my eye. It’s a 1910 proposal for a school and church in Buenos Aires, called the Inmaculado Corazón de María (The Immaculate Heart of Mary), and it was designed by Catalan architects Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Josep Goday i Casals. Details are sparse, but the design seems to be a competition proposal that wasn’t chosen. It’s too bad, because it would’ve been an amazing building if it was completed. The entire structure seems to point up to the sky, as if it’s about to take off and shoot straight up in the air. This effect is enhanced by the central plan, meaning all the points huddle around the central steeple, which is by far the tallest part of the composition.

I’ve previously written about how Gothic architecture was built around verticality. Each structure was meant to point up to the sky through the building’s exterior, while creating a version of Heaven on the interior. As seen above, the exterior accomplishes this in spades. It almost resembles a massive, futuristic gun from a sci-fi movie, standing on alert and ready to shoot at some type of invading force in the sky. Every piece of the building contributes to this upward focus. It’s as if the entire building is calling out, Look up! Look at the Sky!

Worms-eye axon drawing of a 1910 proposal for the Inmaculado Corazón de María, designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Josep Goday i Casals for a site in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The interior of the church is one large space, built around a centrally-placed altar. The worms-eye axon above shows a layering of the central space’s ceiling, which enhances the experience of verticality while inside. Much like the exterior, the entire interior space is designed to carry the eye upward. The building is quite slender and very tall, and the ceiling seems to build upward as one moves to the center, with the highest space seemingly out-of-reach for those on the surface. This is the architect’s version of Heaven, and he’s using verticality to express it.

Floor plans and interior view of a 1910 proposal for the Inmaculado Corazón de María, designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Josep Goday i Casals for a site in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Neo-Gothic designs such as this continue the Gothic tradition, because it was so effective at expressing verticality through the built form. These buildings push upward, as if they’re perpetually trying to break out of their shell and reach the sky. This is a metaphor for humanity, as we are also confined to the surface, and we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to escape.

Check out other unbuilt designs here.