Iglesia San Ignacio de Loyola

Mexico City, Mexico

1961

One of Sordo Madaleno’s most celebrated Modernist buildings, the San Ignacio de Loyola Church sublimates the enduring qualities of historic sacred spaces into a modern small-scale sanctuary. Its steep verticality, evenly distributed presence of light, and radical minimalism engages with a wave of change in ecclesiastical design, prompted by liturgical reforms within Catholicism in the 1960s. In its profound simplicity, it becomes a protagonist to the global rethink on spaces of worship.

Yellow ceramic tile façade and stained glass triangular form of San Ignacio de Loyola Church, Polanco, Mexico City. Juan Sordo Madaleno, 1961.

Built on the outer edge of Polanco in Mexico City, the church’s plan works to a single rectangular nave, laid out along its narrow plot, with a small vestibule at its end. From above, the church reads as an overtly legible cruciform – a reduction of line and massing that eliminates the non-essential, elevating both what is there and not there.

Close-up of handmade yellow ceramic tile cladding on San Ignacio de Loyola Church façade, Polanco, Mexico City. Juan Sordo Madaleno, 1961.

The ceramic tiles of San Ignacio de Loyola Church pull focus on craftsmanship and the ability of materials to tell a story. This is similar to the design philosophy at New Collection Centre for the Hungarian Museum of Natural History, where a masonry exterior recalls the layers of Debrecen’s own material history.

Floor-to-ceiling stained glass triangular window flooding the interior of San Ignacio de Loyola Church with colour, Polanco. Juan Sordo Madaleno, 1961.

The stained glass windows at San Ignacio de Loyola Church bring distinct modernity to an architectural element enshrined in the history of religious spaces. Traditionally a place for storytelling, these windows substitute narration for experience – the modulation of light becoming the core message.

Designed as a dramatic prism, formed of a pitched steel framework infilled with textured tiling that celebrates material craftsmanship. The pitch of the structure is such that the need for perimeter supporting walls is eliminated. This scrubbing out of excess heightens the building’s purity – the building’s vertical ascent is uninterrupted; the experience of spatial levitation allowed to be felt wholly.

Interior nave of San Ignacio de Loyola Church bathed in pink light through stained glass walls, Polanco, Mexico City. Juan Sordo Madaleno, 1961.

Archival photograph of San Ignacio de Loyola Church interior under construction, showing the steel triangular frame and altar. Juan Sordo Madaleno, 1961.

Light enters from two points, its tonality manipulated by the shades of tall, seemingly pixelated stained-glass windows. Inside, the dramatically linear space is characterised by a minimalism of materials. The black steel framework becomes a series of converging lines, all moving upwards and together towards one longitudinal axis. This, combined with the church’s steep interiority, draws the eye overhead, along its the length of nave to the altar – the architecture is a signalling gesture, a means of generating harmony that can be felt, not just seen.