by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

The 23,000-square-foot, $5-million Saviour of the World Chinese Catholic Church in Toronto is one of several recent and ongoing church-related projects by Toronto’s Young & Wright Architects Inc., which boasts the only dedicated sacred-architecture studio among major Canadian architectural firms. The Saviour of the World congregation mandated the design of a traditional Catholic church augmented with elements of Chinese architectural form that would express their ethnicity.

Distinctions of Chinese architecture
In 2002, the Catholic Chinese community in Mississauga, a city of 625,000 just west of Toronto, approached Young & Wright Architects to design a church on a tight site adjacent to a school. The community admired the firm’s nearby, recently completed Merciful Redeemer Church, which, like Saviour of the World, updates the tradition of Roman and early Christian basilica churches with a stylish, Modern flavor. Young & Wright transformed the basilica model into an open-concept design that sits on a 1.8-acre site and accommodates the parish’s growing congregation of 700 registered families.

“They approached us because they liked other churches that we designed,” says architect Andrew Baczynski, project director for the church and head of Young & Wright’s Sacred-Architecture Studio. “The parish wanted a traditional space with some distinctions. For the Saviour of the World, we wanted to add the Chinese ethnic flavor to it, and the Chinese community was enthusiastic about that idea.”

A range of stone textures in white and light-brown colors details the exterior of the church and its precast, curved parapet canopies. “We used a lot of rocky-faced and smooth stone,” explains Baczynski. “The complicated shape of the Chinese style couldn’t be produced by the stone manufacturer, so we designed it in precast concrete.” The exterior of the church also incorporates a tall glass curtainwall. Smooth-stone arches break up the exterior elevation and underscore the stylized version of the tall windows of old cathedrals. The main entrance features a Chinese-style curved roof canopy.

Interior highlights stone
Masonry penetrates into the church interior and rests on a colored concrete floor that simulates the slate stone cladding of old cathedrals. “We carry quite a bit of stone into the interior in terms of the base, columns, arches, and pilasters,” describes Baczynski. “We have a color concrete floor applied in such a way in that it visually relates to the historic stone slates that were used in churches. The rest is a combination of drywall and acoustical panels.” The Chinese-style canopy continues inside a large strip of curtain wall glass and forms the clerestory on each side of the church’s interior. Stone pillars with floodlights concealed in the drywall embellish the concrete walls and emphasize the symmetrical floor layout. A stone walkway bordered with ceramic accent tile divides a colored concrete floor.

Worshippers enter through maple doors under an entry expressed in the curved Chinese roof form and proceed to a narthex outlined by stone pillars. Behind the altar a monumental arch, supported by limestone columns, emphasizes the altar’s importance. Tall windows and the clerestory of glass provide natural light throughout the nave. The 6,625-square-foot nave area, with fan-shaped seating for 650, allows for good sightlines. The space between the main entry and the sanctuary—the rear portion of the nave containing the altar—is open, and divided by a large glass screen that permits visitors to see the altar from the building entry. Because of site limitations—Saviour of the World sits in front of a large high school and beside a gas station—the social components of the church, including the parish hall, are located in the split-level basement. At night, the church glows like a beacon, animating one of the busiest streets in the city.

A church should look like a church
The parish community finds the architectural language of the Saviour of the World Church to be inviting and inspiring. Since the church opened in 2004, the congregation has increased in size by approximately 10 percent. “We have gotten a lot of positive comments,” Baczynski says. “The parish and community are very happy about the building. Apparently the result was quite successful. The building has been recognized by Mississauga with award nominations. It’s received a very positive reaction.”

Baczynski refers to Saviour of the World as an update of traditional church architecture that gets away from Modernism. “There is a dilemma,” he explains. “Most design approaches to the sacred building are in the Modern language. As a result, many contemporary churches take their design stimulus from the Modernist concept of ‘universal spaces’. The variety of the forms in the Modern stream is so large that it is hard to design this type of building and have it recognized by the community. The church building might look like a library or swimming pool. Only the cross in front reassures you that the building is indeed a church. The reaction of the clients is, ‘we came to you because you design buildings that look like a church.’ So there is a confidence that if we design a church, it is going to look like a church, no doubt.

“Because we are in a modern time, the thinking is, ‘let’s break the historical architectural language.’ However, there are a lot of clients, particularly in the Catholic Archdiocese, who feel very comfortable in the traditional architecture because it’s a vision of continuity for the centuries. They appreciate that and want that basilica style. Why give that up entirely?”

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