Church in Riola

Alvar Aalto – Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Riola Italy, 1977-1978

The Church of Santa Maria Assunta It is a Catholic religious building located in Ponte di Grizzana Morandi, near the Riola hamlet of the municipality of Vergato, built between 1975 and 1980 based on a design by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
The parish complex is divided, in addition to the main church, into a pedestrian churchyard, a bell tower, a rectory and parish works. The church itself, as can be easily imagined, is the nerve centre of the building organism and is structured on a single nave and on an asymmetrical plan: in the presbytery area are placed the altar, the pulpit for readings and the wooden cross, while in contact with the assembly hall opens - in a slightly lowered position - the baptistery, illuminated by a skylight above and by large windows overlooking the Reno river, almost as if to suggest an inextricable symbolic link between the river waves and the baptismal water. Of particular interest, finally, is the schola for singing, equipped with an organ and raised with respect to the area reserved for the assembly of the faithful.

Of great architectural value is the system designed by Aalto to illuminate the church. In fact, the Finnish architect placed on the upper roof, between the various load-bearing arches, large, jagged windows that capture and diffuse solar radiation inside the building envelope: the light, reverberating on the white plaster of the perimeter walls, spreads throughout the liturgical spaces, then converging towards the altar, the true formal and luminous hub of the entire church. Aalto, moreover, had already shown his ability to manipulate the illuminating factor in numerous other projects, such as – among many – the Viipuri library.

Aalto, of course, conducted this ambitious lighting project with a deep technical awareness of the church's construction system, which rests on six load-bearing arches of various sizes (the largest weighs 60 tons, while the smallest 41).
Most of the structural elements were prepared separately off-site, to be transported to the construction site at a later time and assembled there. To waterproof the roof, and therefore protect the building from rainwater and other atmospheric agents (Riola, after all, is characterized by high rainfall), bituminous sheaths covered with copper sheets were used. The construction materials with which Aalto built the church are also interesting: among the many, it is worth mentioning the sandstone, with which the facade finishes were made (with 4 cm thick slabs), the white Carrara marble (for the flooring of the presbytery area) and the Tuscan terracotta, with which – in 30x30 cm tiles – the assembly area was paved. Source: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiesa_di_Santa_Maria_Assunta_(Riola_di_Vergato)