MONASTERY OF OUR MOTHER OF MERCY

In collaboration with: Iñigo Garcia, Isaac Penhos & Adrián Toca

The Order of Mercy is a catholic religious order, which was founded in Barcelona on August 10th, 1218. The Mercedary spirit is born when a young merchant named Pedro Nolasco, born in a nearby town, claimed to have felt a special calling from God. He saw and felt many injustices and misery in the world around him. This brought him to ask himself: "What could he do to attenuate so much pain and end so much injustice?".

It is then when he embarks on a new path in which he dedicates himself to the freedom of catholics who had abandoned religion, and those who because of situations of slavery, pain or severe emotional distress, were in danger of losing their faith. Nolasco felt a strong connection to the Mother Mary, and she once appeared to him in the form of Our Mother of Mercy, offering him strength and guidance in his journey to free his brothers from their lack of faith.

The formal proposal is born as a response to the need of the separation of the public and private areas/activities, using the original makeup of a cloister (a big square courtyard surrounded by a a roofed colonnade open to a quadrangle on one side) as the main axis of the design. Although generally in the monasteries that can be found around the world there is most likely only one big central cloister, the inviting mission and essence of the Order (which invites the public to enter within its walls) allowed for the incorporation of a second cloister.

The structural elements used throughout the project are derived from classical elements used in the order´s first monasteries.

Tavertet is a municipality in Cataluña, Spain. Belonging to the province of Barcelona, founding place of the Order of Mercy. The town of Tavertet is a rural nucleus of small dimensions, with a very low population density and, above all, elevated. There are approximately two hundred meters separating the array of houses and nature with the bottom of a cliff in which lies the river Ter, which serves as a nexus between the Sau and Susqueda swamps.

While entering these lands through a winding route you cross a world made up of its natural landscape: caves, waterfalls, prehistoric vestiges, vegetation, and the crags. These are huge rock formations of various tones of whites, reds, and ocres, covered with endemic vegetation. In the uppermost part we enter a world which touches the sky, under whos feet lie landscapes which extend to create a perfect image. It is here, in this meeting place between the sky and the earth, in which one can find the Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy.

The evolution of the project arises from this need to separate the public from the privat, using the clasic form of the mercedary monasteries, the square. The project consists of two volumes which contain a big central cloister. Each one of these cloisters houses the program of each tipe of users: one for the public and the other for the private. At the center of the project there is an intersection of these two figures, being not only a union of the volumes, but also the meeting place of both users: the library. This space in a simbolic nucleus in which the monks and the public meet to share and absorb mutual knowledge.

The monastery is designed to use the natural stone of the site as the main material of the building. These stones are the same white rocks that form the crags, and that make up the architecture of the neighboring town, which creates a perfect conection between the natural and built landscapes. Both of the courtyards, as well as the terraces and the sculpture garden are home to the endemic vegetation that lives on the crags, minimizing the impact of the project on the ground and creating an ever deeper conection between inside and outside.

This relationship between the natural and the constructed is an important element of the proiect. It is meant to facilitate the relationship be-tween architecture, nature, and the user, which in turn creates a perfect balance which promotes spirituality and connection with the divine. This is why there is are various openings, terraces and open spaces which frame the existing landscape and allow interaction with it.

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