reading between the lines

reading between the lines by pieterjan gijs & arnout van vaerenbergh. borgloon, limburg.

belgian architects pieterjan gijs & arnout van vaerenbergh have constructed a transparent, see-through church in the belgian region of haspengouw. the project is a long term art installation in public spaces which will be realized in different locations in limburg, the netherlands over the next 5 years as part of the Z-OUT project for Z33 house for contemporary art.
the 10 meter structure is made of 100 stacked layers & 2,000 columns of steel plates. during different times of the day, the church interior changes, according to the position of the sun & the direction of the sunlight. the play of light & the shadows create a feeling of supremacy, spirituality & religious emotionalism. the application of steel makes a statement about the bold relationship of church & religion in the netherlands. according to the architects, the amount of church goers is constantly decreasing; the churches themselves are falling into disuse more & more often, therefore the future of these emptying & abandoned churches is a current issue among several artists.
with this information in mind, the architects named this project "reading between the lines", to perceive or detect an obscure or unexpressed meaning - translating the meaning of transparency from the realm of information to the realm of the observable, the evident & the real.