TEMPLE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Warsaw, Poland

The Temple of Divine Providence is a principal Roman Catholic church in Poland. Its development was conceived in 1791, but its commencement was stalled for one reason after another for the next 225 years. Various designs evolved over the years, from a classicist look to an institutional design. The Temple as it stands today is inspired by the form of a Greek cross – with four equal length arms, four gates, a dome and a cross . The building is 275’ by 275’ in plan, and is 246 feet tall. Twenty-six massive curved columns arranged in a circle form the nave of the church, which is 223 feet in diameter. It is the largest church in Poland. The architects Wojciech and Lech Szymborski found the cost to be around $45 million. There remains division in the community as to the appropriateness of the design, which is sometimes derisively called the “lemon squeezer”. I found it to be uncannily similar to the US National Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, which express the top three fourths of a football as a dome on the roof. While there, the nave was being cleaned, and space was clear of furniture, so I was able to walk the entire room. The complex interplay of the interior concrete structure yielded what had to be a pleasant surprise to the architects, who could have hardly imagined the resulting dance of light and solids.