The Augustinian Recollects of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Province decided during the 1950s to make a foundation in Madrid. Up to then the history of the province had been developing in the Philippines, although at that time it was also establishing a significant presence in Mexico and in England.
The Residence
On June 21, 1952, the Provincial Council approved the foundation of a residence in Madrid. The prior provincial went to the capital immediately to begin the process and the business of building a house. The property was bought on August 2, a plot of land measuring 2,260 square meters, located strategically in a section of the city that was then in a phase of urban development, in the burough Argüelles, bordering on University City of Madrid. The property was at the corner of Gaztambide Street and the wide Cea Bermúdez Avenue.
By January 1953 construction began on an ample residence for religious, following a plan drawn up by architects Antonio Vallejo Álvarez and Ramón Ramírez de Dampierre. They envisioned a building of ample dimensions, with a straight facade, built of red brick, and a multitude of geometrically placed small windows framed in gray granite. The design was, without a doubt, inspired by the buildings in the nearby Moncloa Plaza and in University City, with austere and repetitive lines reminiscent of the style of El Escorial, here with a colorful pattern formed by the contrast of red brick walls and light granite window frames.
The design also remotely recalled the ancient monastery of the Recollects located on the property that is now the National Library, on the paseo that today bears the name Paseo de Recoletos, which the Order was forced to abandon during the expropriation of Church properties by Mendizábal in the 19th century.
The building has an angled corner with a noble tower at the top and a gabled niche at its base, in which is displayed a bas-relief of a bust of Saint Augustine, depicted as bishop and doctor, sculpted by Antonio Martínez Penella. At the top of the tower is a large clock, over which is a slate pyramidal roof with a cross at the peak.
The Church
The cornerstone of Saint Rita Church was solemnly laid on January 11, 1953, after the residence had been completed. The church was not designed from the facade but from the interior. The floor plan did not take the form of a Greek or Latin cross or allow for a basilican enclosure.
The circular form of the church and the absence of any kind of columns or supporting beams make the church functional in the most authentic sense of the term: inviting concentration. The altar, a true table and sacrifical rock, occupies the most visible and significant place in the church. The priest can be seen and heard. This was the strategic plan of the design: the creation of an atmosphere that elevates the spirit and prepares for prayer, without built-in distractions.
It took six years to complete the construction of the church. Its technical characteristics demanded especially strong footings for esthetical reasons (its shape of an inverted cone) and for geographical reasons (the characteristics of the ground).
The facade of the church continues the line of the rest of the building forming a harmonious unit with it. The life of Saint Rita is depicted in a massive tableau facing the street. The sixteen bas-relief illustrations are carved in white stone that stands out against the red brick background and are framed in the same stone, brought from colmenar de Oreja.
From left to right and from top to bottom they depict sixteen scenes from the life of the Saint of the Impossible. Thus, the facade prepares us gently, through this scene of simple but profound beauty, to enter the sacred place to adore God in his grandeur in the company of one of his saints.
Interior Design
We enter the church, passing through a small vestibule between the street and the inside of Saint Rita Church in Madrid. The doors open. A profound impression of admiration and awe overtakes us. The verticality of the walls, the varied hues of color of the stained glass windows, the blue luminosity of the dome create a sense of brilliance and lightness.
The architects chose, as a way to create a sense of sacred space from the first moment, a feeling of awe and wonder, a reaction of surprise very similar to that produced in Byzantine churches. Looking upward one feels the power of the ascensional rhythm of the supporting walls and the filtered light of the massive colored windows. These are golden yellow toward the south, violet toward the north, and red toward the east. But most impressive of all is the light from above cast by an almost flat cupola of a celestial blue color that reflects the natural light. All of this fills the atmosphere with warm luminosity.
Forming the base of the cupola is a wide ring bearing in large gold letters the supreme prayer of glorification of the Most Blessed Trinity: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
The double ribs of the structure, coverd with gold-colored marble and reaching all the way to the top. divide the walls into eight symetrical spaces. At the level just below the ring with the Trinitarian doxology, in the front section is a mosaic representing the Trinity, and in the remaining seven spaces are written seven quotations of Saint Augustine about the meaning of the church. Javier Clavo used the spaces between the quotations to paint figures of Augustinian saints with dark colored backgrounds.
Attracing our attention at a level just below this is a gigantic, five-meter statue of Saint Rita sculpted by Penella of synthetic material, her body almost cylindrical in form. Dressed in the black habit of a nun and wearing the Augustinian cincture, she is holding a cross in a loving meditative gesture. It is hard to tell whether she is going up to heaven or coming down to attend to the prayers of her devotees.
The Altar
At the ground level, forming part of the sanctuary, the altar aims to be the center of the celebration, and so the architects chose for it an enourmous polished black marble rock from Marquina, the same material used for the pulpit, where the Sacred Scriptures are proclaimed, and for the entire floor of the sanctuary.
Javier Clavo left here more evidence of his artistic skill in the via crucis, located in a row, seven meters high and occuping almost the entire circle. Here the artist has broken with tradition, choosing a more modern, expressionistic style. In that mosaic he reveals the greatest of his innovative and technical capacities.
The ribs of the building form eight sections. The front one is occupied by the area of the main altar, opposite the entrance doors in the rear section. The remaining six house shallow chapels, forming an integrated view of the whole group, all of them with distinct and complementary styles. They were designed for a time before concelebration, when each priest celebrated his own Mass. Each chapel has its own special theme.
The Crypt
The promoter of Saint Rita Church in Madrid, the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, wanted to dedicate the crypt under the church to its holy patron. At the right of the vestibule of the church is a large door that opens to a stairway leading to the crypt. On the wall in front of the stairway we find ourselves once again viewing Our Lady of Consolation, this time painted in oil on canvas by Juan Barba, the painter of the marvelous mural that adorns the circular band of the crypt.
As we continue down the steps, after passing the landing, there suddenly appears, in a recollected space, an impressive Christ Crucified, entitled “Christ of the Reconciliation.”
The image creates in the visitor a sensation of piety inspired by the death of Christ. As we turn to the right from this spot, there appear to us, in a flood of color and light, the paintings of Juan Barba in the crypt dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Tolentine. We see a Christ Crucified, without a cross, who emerges from a brilliant background. We feel attracted by a strange fascination, and we move forward toward the crypt.
The Mural
A multicolored world of figures appears in an impressive mural 32 feet long, with a total size of 130 square meters. They are painted on the walls of the crypt, located exactly under the center of the church above, in a perfect circle, measuring five and a half meters high in the center and three and a half meters high on the surrounding walls.
The mural immediately captivates the spectator, surrounding him with larger than life-size figures at the level of his vision. Barba used a special technique in painting the mural, with oil rather than as a traditional fresco. This gives the painting its intense color in loose and fresh lines.
Religious Art
The late fifties and early sixties were times of strong debate regarding religious art, not so much in Spain as in the central European countries, as the building of new churches flourished after World War II. For many, the solutions proposed as more modern copied too closely the cold and bare feeling of the Protestant churches. For others, it made no sense to continue with a stagnated style out of touch with liturgical renewal.
The Argentinian daily La Nación reported that a work of great poetic power had been created, giving an impression of extraordinary grandeur. A specialized magazine emphasized the “totally new rhythm of an esthetic whose surprise of modernity does not exclude the solemn beauty due to the house of God.”
The Madrid daily Ya called it “a model of what a church of today should be,” contrasting its style with so many churches of the nineteenth century “filled with confectionary plaster casts and weak images,” and praising the welcoming atmmosphere of the new church. The daily Arriba stated: “We have never seen a chuch so modern and so beautiful at the same time,” and pointed out its three most noteworthy characteristics: “luminosity, simplicity, and tranparency”.
Contrary to these laudatory commentaries were heard the voices raised by defenders of a more modern art, breaking more with tradition, more in the vanguard. Of particular note among them were the Jesuit Juan Plazaola, a commentator on sacred art, and the Dominican
Aguilar, editor of the review Art. Plazaola remarked, “One’s attention tends to be dispersed, attracted by the variety of adornments,” and pointed out antiliturgical details that had already been corrected in other countries. Father Aguilar described Saint Rita Church as a “bazaar” in contrast to the stark bareness that he fostered as exemplary.