San Arialdo is the name of a small chapel located in Velate, a small community in Varese. It was presented to us as a lecture room in the parish house used by the children to prepare the communion.
The room, modest and simple in its shape, spontaneous in its furniture, though flooded by an intense natural light, has been used in the previous years as a space where a small group of believers gathered to pray. Among them a careful and sensible person residing in the community, addressed our studio to do a requalification project.
The appeal of the place was immediately obvious so our first approach was to listen respectfully with the aim of maintaining the historic memory and the spontaneity of the place.
The project’s aim has been to understand the spirit of the space, reorganizing it and emphasizing the quality of the light coming from the southern wall which is completely windowed. The choice was to realize some wide frames upholstered by white textile in order to regulate the sunbeams during the various hours of the day creating a celestial nave in the direction of the alter.
The holy furnitures have been redesigned conserving only the original benches with their canonical shape and their dark color which seem to request remaining fastened to the existing floor.
A wooden cross, created by the artist Giorgio Vicentini, is placed on the wall behind the alter. In the tension and vibration of its shape it appears as an admirable summary of the honest and original auspices which the cross symbolize.
