Church of São Jorge de Arroios

The Church of São Jorge de Arroios was built to replace a previous church demolished in 1969, in the context of the Movement for the Renewal of Religious Art (MRAR). It stands at the corner of the Alves Torgo and Carlos José Barreiros streets and leans over the front garden of the Rua de Arroios. The churchyard showcases the Cruzeiro de Arroios, transferred from the vestry of the previous church that had already extracted it from its former placement at the Largo de Arroios. According to the architects, the key challenge of this project was to allow the large number of Sunday Mass practitioners to flow onto the street. Their solution included the suppression of the street at the south of the church, promoting the direct access to a square. The church is volumetrically separated from the annexes and internally the viewers’ attention converges into the main altar. It is arranged asymmetrically, in a fan configuration that presents the presbytery in one corner and distributes the congregation over two levels – nave and tribune.