The picture that comes first in our minds when we think of churches is of big building with high ceilings  and  statues of saints,  a cold  sacred place where Christians come to pray.A revolutionary  concept of church was designed and build by Gijs Van Vaerenberg, a collaboration between young Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenberg .Their creation consists of a see-through church. This is part of an major ambitious  longterm art in public spaces.

The project will be realized on different locations in the Flemish region of Limburg over the next five years. This unusual  construction is 10 meter high and is made of 100 layers and 2000  columns of steel. This is perceived in different ways, depending on the viewer position. Thereby this church  can look like a genuine massive building or it seems to dissolve  partially or entirely in the landscape.

The multitude of churches in the area inspired this structure but through the use of horizontal plates, the concept of traditional church construction  is transformed into a transparent object of art.  The name of this  building  project is  “ Reading between the lines”  and demonstrates that the visual experience is in effect a consequence of the design .  I like the new idea of using the enormous  potential of traditional building and transposing it  in an artistic context.{pictures by Kristof Vrancken / Z33 – Mine Daelemans}.