The Saint Sarkis Armenian Church in Carrollton is a part of a three-building campus in the Saint Sarkis Community center built to serve the congregation. It conducted its first Sunday service on April 24th - the annual commemoration for the 1915 Armenian Genocide of 1.5 million people, which marked the end of two thousand years of the Armenian civilisation. The Saint Sarkis church is both - a sanctuary for the community members to practice the Christian faith and a memorial of their martyred ancestors. As we played an integral part in building this project, it was delightful when The Saint Sarkis Armenian Church was identified as the building of the week. It has also been nominated for the building of the year.
The Origin of the Church
The 250-seat church, the centerpiece of the campus, can be accessed through a shaded entry courtyard positioned between the other buildings on the campus. If you’re familiar with the ancient Armenian church of Saint Hripsime, the inspiration for the Saint Sarkis Armenian Church is perceptible. The New Church building is modelled on the ancient Church, completed in 618 AD and still stands near Armenia’s modern capital of Yerevan. The cornerstone for the Saint Sarkis Church was laid exactly four centuries later and eight thousand miles from the Church of Saint Hripsime, a UNESCO world heritage site. Armenia was the world's first Christian nation, which converted to Christianity in 301AD - 60 years before the Roman Empire adopted Christianity - and the connection of the new church building to the ancient relic is a reminder of that history.
There is a striking resemblance between the structure’s form to its inspiration. It serves as a memory of the homeland of the congregation. The homeland from which ancestors of the congregation were expelled violently into the Syrian desert during the genocide. Only a few surviving people arrived in Lebanon; among the hundreds of thousands who perished of thirst, starvation, exhaustion & exposure established a diaspora community of Armenians. The funds for the Saint Sarkis Church in Carrollton, Texas, were raised by their descendants who emigrated to America during the Lebanese Civil War.
To recreate the atmosphere of the Ancient Church in the powerful Texas sunlight, concave light coves were sculpted in the exterior of the building to allow indirect light inside the building. It resulted in an ethereal quality of illumination, evoking the emotions associated with divinity. The doubly curved plaster vaults were fabricated in glass-fibre-reinforced gypsum directly from the architect's computer model. Their smooth and scaleless form with no visible light or air conditioning fixtures amplifies the ethereal quality of the luminous forms. It results in an illumination reminiscent of the ancient church of saint Hripsime.
Another feature that adds to the user's comfort in the space without affecting the ambience is the displacement climate control system, which uses a remotely located mechanical plant for air conditioning by introducing air at a low velocity through floor registers located under the pews. It resulted in a pleasant interior space that evokes the desired emotions and allows visitors to completely experience the reverberant acoustics of the traditional Armenian chorus music without any mechanical vibration or ambient noise disturbance.
The Canvas of the façade.
The uniform monochrome grey of the church’s exterior is a striking feature of the austere beauty of Armenian ecclesiastical architecture. The modern rendition is achieved through precast concrete exterior walls, glass-fibre-reinforced concrete light coves and a standing seam zinc roof. In comparison, the ancient Armenian churches had their austere monolithic quality by being constructed entirely out of stone.
Partnering with Architect David Hotson, We created the pièce de résistance of the project, The Memorial façade. As the visitor observes the western façade from a distance, the traditional Armenian cross or ‘tree of life’ is visible. It is as was depicted on the traditional Katchkars - the stone crosses - with distinctive branching arms throughout ancient Armenia. As the visitor draws closer, the composition of interwoven geometrical and botanical motifs - found originally in Armenian art signifying ancestry, language, culture and tradition - become more apparent. The Armenian people have been bound together through centuries of upheaval with these symbols.
Similar to seeing pixels as we draw close to a digital screen, the building blocks that form the overall façade design become visible up close. The pixels of this composition, tiny circular ornaments, become visible in their geometric beauty. The design consists of 1.5 million ornaments, each unique, but coming together to become part of a bigger story is effectively symbolic to each of the individuals martyred as a part of the Armenian Genocide. The façade becomes an emphatic element in expressing the scale of the tragedy as people watch it from varying distances. This becomes symbolic of the marriage of cutting-edge technology to tell stories of an enormous loss in Armenian History. We developed the façade through a groundbreaking process of high-resolution UV-resistant printing on the exterior grade porcelain rain-screen panels at our porcelain panel facility - Fiandre. We at Graniti Vicentia provided a survey with measurements used for fabrication. The complexity of the façade design left no room for any tolerance for a misprint, wrong dimensions etc.
The Church won the best façade of the year award in 2022 by the Interior Design Magazine. We at Graniti Vicentia are proud to be involved in a momentous achievement of sharing and helping remember a story vital to the congregation and the rest of the world. Visit our website to view our work. Contact us to know more.