Igreja Nova de Aldoar, Porto

Instead of a conventional church form, Igreja Nova de Aldoar was designed as a tent, meant to suggest an interior that receives people, brings them together, allows passage, and fosters shared worship. Alfredo Moreira da Silva created this design because the parish needed a larger and better-prepared worship space than its earlier mother church, Igreja da Vilarinha. The new church opened in 1988.

It covers twelve hundred square metres and accommodates five hundred and sixty people seated, with capacity for another thousand standing. Those dimensions explain the ambition behind the project: this parish church was made to gather a large congregation within its tent-shaped structure. Building it cost sixty-three thousand three hundred contos, including a state contribution of twenty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-five contos.

Notice the building’s overall form. The tent is not simply an architectural gesture; it expresses the architect’s intention that the church should feel embracing and communal.