New Mount Olive Baptist Church

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New Mount Olive Baptist Church

Firm

MATEU Architecture Inc.

Type

Cultural › Religious

MATEU Architecture, Inc., has won an invited design competition for the
design of a new Worship Center and Life Center for the New Mount Olive
Baptist Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The invited
competition included MATEU Architecture Inc., and HCO Architects, Inc., a
nationally recognized Architecture and Engineering firm specializing in
Faith Based Buildings, based in Indianapolis, Indiana.New Mount
Olive Baptist Church, located just west of downtown Ft. Lauderdale, at
400 NW 9th Avenue, is one of the oldest African American churches in
South Florida. With a storied past dating to its humble beginnings on
November 25, 1918, the New Mount Olive Baptist Church campus today
contains a structure which is included in the National Register of
Historic Places, along with the current 4 story worship facility built
in 1979, and boasting a membership of over 10,000 congregants. Ripples
created when a drop falls in water was the organizational frame of
reference and inspiration for the design concept, symbolic of the
church’s mission statement… “Go ye therefore and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and
lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Matthew
28:19-20.The winning design concept includes a new Worship
Sanctuary with over 1950 seats, a bookstore, café area, Sunday School
classrooms, choir facilities, administrative and pastoral offices, a 200
seat chapel and parking facilities, proposed to be built as Phase I of a
two phase building program and adding approximately 40,000 s.ft. to the
existing facilities in a seamless architectural expression that unifies
the entire campus. Phase II will be the re-purposing of the existing
worship facility into a Family Life Center that will include, among
other spaces, a gymnasium, workout facilities, fellowship/dining hall
and meeting spaces, whose construction will commence after the
completion of Phase I.The proposed design includes a number of
abstracted symbolic elements associated with “church architecture”
without the “literal” expressions of a more traditional solution and a
proposal for a 15 year master plan of development, with milestones every
5 years, that will include a school, additional parking facilities and a
potential residential development for congregation members.Renderings by Ruben Gil of Spacial Visionz