Constructing a Genius Loci: the St Pius X’s church in Wilrijk, 1957-1967

Sacred places are mostly described as remarkable sites where architecture is used to accentuate their poetic dimensions. This paper reverses this conventional conception by inquiring how sacredness can be created on ‘ordinary’ locations. It focuses on the construction of suburban spaces for worship in post-war Belgium and examines the influence of the Second Vatican Council. To this effect, it analyses the case of the St Pius X’s parish church (1967) in Wilrijk by means of a theoretical model by D. Chidester and E. Linenthal. It furthermore scrutinizes the considerable revision of the concept of sacredness brought about by the Council. This paper argues that sacredness is something that can be constructed and demonstrates that different interpretations of sacredness can coexist at a single site.status: publishe