Gimeno Guitart’s church in the coastal city Tarragona, in the Spanish region of Catalonia, is an unmistakably 21st-century place of worship. Its design evokes brutalism, but with an urban and modernist simplicity. While the parish centre, with its soft skin of perforated metal, feels lightweight and inviting, the church next door – a heavy concrete polyhedron – is suitably imposing for a house of God. Visitors enter through narrow foyers that open dramatically to the main space: a tall sanctuary lit by bands of hidden clerestory windows. Raw concrete has never looked so divine.

Project: Church and Parish Center Santa Maria Assumpta

Location: Tarragona, Spain

Firm: Gimeno Guitart, Spain

Team: Daniel Gimeno and Miguel Guitart