“While it is a privilege for an architect to plan and build a church, it is also a challenge and a stimulus, given its significance for the community, the urban fabric and the local history. A church represents both a building and a symbol that has marked the history of the last two millennia of architecture, culture and landscape of much of Europe and beyond. In the enduring presence of religious buildings that have survived to our times, we can identify the construction conditions and skills of the different epochs insofar as the differences in their architecture reflect the church and community’s expression of their hopes and troubles (fortified churches, for example). In some eras, such as the Baroque, churches reflected power and boundless joy, while in others they stood in gratitude for the ending of a plague. Thus architecture becomes an expression of the community and epoch that generates it and of the mentality of the society at that time. This fact becomes even clearer when considering the principles established by the councils and the invitations to sobriety and austerity of the most recent papal magisterium.” The construction of the church of the Trasfigurazione del Signore allowed Camponovo to experiment with innovative, bold solutions, especially in the new materials and technologies used to build the spire. Although the architect drew in part upon traditions from the past, his choice of highly technological materials for the spire and the exquisite sobriety and utter lack of excess of the interior faithfully embody the demands of our own epoch. “When conceiving a house of worship, the act of planning must include interpretations of a symbolic nature, although we should keep in mind that symbols depend on instinct and intuition, not logic. For instance, the geometry throughout the complex is based on the circle and the square, with the Church being the centre from which all the rest emanates. The principles of the composition are manifested in the spire reaching towards the sky, which serves as a conceptual representation of spirituality. Also Camponovo’s choice of materials – light ones for the upper elements and stone for the building (‘… and on this rock …’) – have a symbolic meaning. And finally, we can also interpret the stone as representing tradition while the glass and steel belong to modernity and the future of the life of the Church.”
