Highway Church | Autostrada del Sole

Highway Church: a stone and concrete "natural organism"

During its construction, the highway started gaining importance at a national level and for this reason, it was decided to include, along its route, a symbol to celebrate this achievement, an actual memorial. It is the Church of Saint Giovanni Battista, better known as the "Church of the Autostrada del Sole".
The church is located at the gates of Florence, in the municipality of Campi Bisenzio, and is an example of urban sensibility in harmony with Tuscany’s nature. It was primarily built to commemorate the numerous victims amongst the workers that had helped build hundreds of kilometers of highway. This highway was a symbol of progress and unity for Italy which had just come out of war. The definite location for the church was symbolically chosen exactly halfway between Milan and Rome; the two cities connected by the big road artery.
The project was assigned and carried out by Giovanni Michelucci between 1960 and 1964. Michelucci was an architect from Pistoia who lived for almost a century and witnessed tragic events which marked him deeply, both as a man and as an artist.
Through his work, Michelucci wanted to pay homage to the construction models used for the highway, in fact, he made use of ordinary and prestressed reinforced concrete, along with a local stone. To reach the volumetric definition of the final covering model, Michelucci used clay and bronze models: a very complex and articulated structure was obtained. This structure metaphorically assumes the shape of a tent, a shelter that travelers of different cultures and religions can use to stop and rest after having traveled the long highway stretch.

"I realized that such a construction could have constituted, in itself, a meeting place for men from every country when, coming from every part of the continent, crossed our
highways, they almost always stop for an inevitable and necessary stay in Florence ”.

Michelucci

The idea of the journey takes shape through the physical and spiritual paths that architectural elements create by dividing and defining this sacred space; each step offers the visitor a new and different point of view.
The architecture itself is contrasting: the copper roof is dynamic, it almost seems moved by the wind and that it follows the trend of the characteristic Tuscan hills, while the body of the church is in a solid local stone and concrete. The same contrast can also be found inside the church, with the curtain covering, which despite being made of prestressed concrete, conveys great lightness, against the solid stone room with an irregular Latin cross shape. The “curtains” are supported by large "tree-pillars", in reinforced concrete and all different from each other, with the "branches", that intertwine and go in every direction, in this way one has the feeling of being inside a real natural organism.
The church reaches its maximum height of 26 meters at the main altar; thus, the external back creates a volume of strong plastic impact and a symbolic ascending path towards the cross at the top, which is an evident reference to Golgotha.
Although the church is located in a highly frenetic point, inside one can enjoy a peaceful and calm
environment, as a detachment from everyday life for the traveler.

From its early stages, the church gained an unusual attention and notoriety for being a contemporary architecture, which led to both positive and negative opinions.
Its iconic and architectural value has also been underlined by some critics: "symbol (in spite of itself?) of the motorized Italian mass of the 60s. If this work has a flaw it's that it fluctuates between heterogeneous readings and meanings. The fluidity of the interior spaces, made to perceive the naturalistic and vibrant root, is embellished with beautiful materials and its realization reveals at a distance a superb technical quality that contributes to the duration of the myth".
And again: «we can state with legitimate pride that the Autostrada del Sole was the major public work carried out by our country in this post-war period: on the 100 year anniversary of the Unification of Italy, it reduced the gap along the peninsula that will allow the true and final fusion of Italians into a single people».
The church is a living architecture outside traditional patterns and a symbol of that modernity that was increasingly part of daily life during the years of the economic boom.