Proposal for the modification of the liturgical space of St. Augustine's Church in Brno

The project deals with the design of an altar, ambo, sedes, and seating for altar servers in the presbytery space of the Church of St. Augustine at Náměstí Míru in Brno. Vladimír Fischer, the architect of the church completed in 1938, left us with a sophisticated modern architecture with sensitively designed interiors of nearly "Plečnik" character. This primarily involves cultivated brass details combined with dark brown marble with white veining. The altar further features a combination of polished brass bands framing areas of white, lightly grey-veined marble together with a bronze statue of the crucified Christ by Josef Axmann. An important element of the church is also the grid of white tiles and dark strips on the church floor. This same grid is reflected in the wooden, larch-clad coffered ceiling.

In designing the altar, we sought to closely match the material solution used in the church. At the same time, we looked for traces of the original creator's story that he imprinted in the sacred space. We believe we found it in Fischer's original, now-removed design of the dividing rail of the presbytery. It represented a cultivated symbolism of the cross and the sign of St. Augustine. We proposed to intarsia these two symbols in a transferred polished brass form into the walls of the altar table. This creates a historical line connecting the current solution with the original symbolic line designed by the creator of the church. The block of the table is optically and sensorially lightened by an elevated base clad in a polished brass strip. For the altar table, we chose stone "sivec," originating from Macedonia, due to its non-aggressive, calm pattern that does not compete with the existing marble cladding of the altar.

The symbol of the cross, through which Jesus Christ materializes in the Most Holy Sacrament, is placed at the front of the altar. The symbol of St. Augustine referring to love and hope is then placed on the sides of the altar. All of this is interconnected by a brass line symbolizing unity and the church gathered around one altar table. The table also includes a reliquary for the relics of St. Augustine, located at the front of the upper plate in the form of an insertable brass case.

The design of the ambo is based on the altar's solution, where a marble octagon rises on a receded base clad in a brass ring, crowned by a brass reading desk. This creates a pair of liturgical spaces that gently connect and complement the existing altar. For the sedes, we propose wooden armchairs made of dark wood with armrests, and benches of a similar character for altar servers.

The goal was to express ourselves in a contemporary language while non-aggressively and humbly connecting to the complex work of architect Fischer and augmenting it with elements that naturally relate to the original high-quality architectural design.