San Gabriele Arcangelo in Mater Dei Church, Modern Catholic church in Milan, Italy.
San Gabriele Arcangelo in Mater Dei is a modern church featuring a single nave supported by 14 concrete pillars. These pillars correspond to the Stations of the Cross and structure the interior space.
The church was commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, as part of his plan launched after he succeeded Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster on 5 January 1955 to provide new parish centres for Milan's postwar periphery. The Opera pia delle chiese e case parrocchiali povere assigned the design to Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1956; the project was submitted to the city at the end of that year and approved a few months later. The FERGAN company completed the parish house in 1957 and the church in 1959.
The church's name refers to the Archangel Gabriel and to Mater Dei, Mother of God. The Castiglioni brothers also designed the pews, confessionals and other liturgical furnishings, treating the interior as a design project. The 14 concrete pillars along the single nave coincide with the Stations of the Cross.
The parish complex includes spaces for charity work, priest residence, meeting rooms, and community activities. Visitors should know this functions as a multifunctional religious center with different facilities available.
The church has no true forecourt: it sits directly among the houses, raised on a beola stone step that links it to the other buildings of the parish complex. The facade wall stops well below the roofline, and the empty space at the tympanum increases light to the presbytery window.
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