94
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design
mag
Upon completion of stage three the church
will be all but enclosed by ancillary buildings,
in keeping with the Greek Orthodox tradition.
Partly this reflects the Orthodox belief that the
church is not just a place to inspire and uplift
but in a mysterious way it is Heaven. It also
acknowledges the history of Mount Athos, the
remote Greek peninsula whose many
monasteries have often come under siege
over the centuries.
Although church buildings in Greece are
constructed in stone, this was impractical in
Australia, both financially and logistically.“The
hardest thing for me was adapting this pristine,
precise material (bricks) to a very traditional
form and introducing details that make the
material belong to the building,”, Stavropolous
told us in 2009 at the completion of the church.
In both stages he has succeeded admirably
with a meticulous design blending a multitude
of complex brick details to enrich the surface of
these already highly-articulated buildings.
Although a large portion of the stage 2 building
facade is stretcher bond cavity (double)
brickwork, there is a substantial amount of
arched, fanning, corbelled and ‘zigzag’
brickwork to create a highly textured and
decorative skin.
The second stage of the complex describes an
L-shape which houses seven bedrooms with
partial ensuites, a two-level library (linked by a
spiral staircase), offices, kitchen and large
dining room on the upper level.“After the
church, the dining room is the second most
important space in a monastery,” Demetrios
explains.“The walls of this space will eventually
be adorned with icons in a similar manner to
the church.”
Directly below the dining room is a large
storeroom that will enable the monks to stock
extensive provisions.The back wall of the dining
room secretes a deep cavity that allows air flow
from the underlying storeroom to be ventilated
through hit-and-miss brickwork in the gable.
previous opening.
The exquisitely
textured roofs of the monastery
church overlooking the wilderness
of Mangrove Mountain.The
monks’ accommodation is the
second phase in this long-term
project. Superb detailing and
clever choice of materials will
ensure a complex that will
last for centuries.
