Type: Documentation

Location: Kerala, India

Year: 2020

Carmel Hill Monastery Church, Thiruvananthapuram, under the Patronage of the Holy Family, is an unparalleled expression of the architectural and aesthetic décor and the matchless feat of engineering perfection. This unique Church of the Malabar Province of the Discalced Carmelites provides the most alluring venue for peaceful prayer and liturgical celebrations in the heart of the busy city of Thiruvananthapuram.

A century old and built with materials of the time, this Church has withstood the inclemency of the weather and the test of the time without even the uncovered bricks of the outer part of the church requiring plastering or painting. Such stalwart externals of this Church symbolize the internal reality of this Church. 

Carmel Hill Monastery was designed as the place of unmitigated observance of the Carmelite way of life and the church attached to it as the place of worship for the friars and candidates perfectly in tune with Carmelite tradition and practice. This uncompromising attitude of the superiors over the purpose of both the monastery and the Church is scrupulously followed even today unaffected by the external strength and beauty of this Church.

ENTRANCE AND ACCESS

The church is a rectangular space of area approximately 880 sq.m with sides 22.7m x 38.7m and rises up to a height of 21m. 

The main entrance to the church is from the western side with three arched doors, the middle large one entering into a foyer space, leading to the central nave of the church and the smaller side doors open into the side aisles.

NAVE, AISLES AND ALTAR

The altar is on the eastern side of the church. There are entrance doors both on the northern and southern sides leading directly to each of the side aisles. 

The church is separated into two aisles and a nave by Tuscan-ordered arch colonnades, which is clearly an influence of the Carmel Monastery in Ghent. 

WALLS AND LEVELS

The church walls adjoining the aisles being approximately 10m high are supported on the northern and southern sides by 7 buttresses each. 

Vertical access to the upper floors is through dog-legged and spiral staircases.