The ongoing trend towards secularization has led to decrease in church attendance. Any excursion into contemporary society & culture reveals how heavily virtual culture is today. TrackScreen is a project intended to start a conversation about secularization and the religiousness of today’s generation.
It asks how much is social networking pushing towards secularization, and wether virtuality, which is in the heart of social networking, could encourage people to find meaning in the central spiritual human searching. In a church where John LaFarge’s art work was intended to express spirituality beyond explicit appearance, the new supplementing program, mainly based on virtual culture, has the potential to push towards the search for spirituality and meaning in the so-more secular world of today, owing to its immaterial nature, but also generate a source of income necessary for the maintenance of the building.
TrackScreen - house of NewportFILM - brings people from different ages and backgrounds together, for various film- related events, creating social sustainability in the community of Newport. It is a soft intervention, flexible enough to
be modular, adaptable and dismountable. The system of projection screens mounted on tracks will enhance the
church experience, but will also supplement the new parish house which will now house the film production activities for NewportFILM organization. The retrofit of the parish house into NewportFILM House is in dialogue with the church. The new building cannot exist without its neighbour, yet the church remains untouched. It softly clings onto the chuch with a panoramic bridge on top reminiscing the missing tower.
The new facade brings to mind LaFarge’s work through its color wash, and adds dynamism to the neighborhood skyline through its screens and translucent facades.
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