Pope Paul VI Audience Hall

[Bre6785]

Has anybody else seen that the pope’s audience hall looks like the head of a serpent, on the outside and the inside? I find this quite concerning. First that it exists, that somebody had to have approved it, and the fact that it’s only talked about and discussed by those outside the church. As just another reason to prove that the pope is the anti Christ and the church is the whore of babylon. Of anybody has some insight into this subject, i would appreciate hearing it.

 

[Fauken]

Has anybody else seen that the pope’s audience hall looks like the head of a serpent, on the outside and the inside?

No. Could you show us a picture of it?

First that it exists, that somebody had to have approved it, and the fact that it’s only talked about and discussed by those outside the church.

There are a lot of talking points discussed by those outside the Church, and they tend to be outright lies and falsehoods about the Church. That’s why we don’t discuss them – because they’re 100% wrong.

As just another reason to prove that the pope is the anti Christ and the church is the whore of babylon. Of anybody has some insight into this subject, i would appreciate hearing it.

Have you seen the articles written here about it? Here’s one:

The Whore of Babylon | Catholic Answers Tract

Do you have a particular question about the Church’s defense against that accusation?

 

[midori]

Hahaha, it’s pretty ugly. I had no idea it existed. It looks like it was built in 1971, and is an auditorium used as an alternative to St. Peter’s Square.

I’m sure someone thought it was a good idea… and I’m sure someone else thought it was pretty enough to build… but ultimately, it just looks like someone had bad taste in architecture. However, technically speaking, it’s pretty amazing— the engineering.

Commissioned by Pope Paul VI in 1963, the Papal Audience Hall in Vatican City was inaugurated in 1971. Shortly thereafter both the hall and the architect achieved such a worldwide fame that the auditorium came to be called familiarly Aula Nervi. It is one of the last great works of Pier Luigi Nervi, an engineer by training as well as a skilled entrepreneur and unsurpassed interpreter of cement as form and structure for architectural and infrastructural works where it is impossible to distinguish the design project from structural computation.

The complex is located near St. Peter’s Basilica in an area between Italy and Vatican City. The large auditorium, which can accommodate up to twelve thousands people is covered by a double curving parabolic vault that, thanks to its slender bearing structures, makes the big vault as suspended in air and powered by invisible antigravity forces.

In order to facilitate the view of the papal throne, even the floor has a double convex curvature. A refined and innovative system for air circulation was installed, consisting of nine channels and placed under the floor, to dissipate the intense heat output of the communication equipment like the lighting systems of TV cameras. The auditorium was built with extensive use of reinforced concrete and a special concrete mix with white marble dust and grit provided by Italcementi. It is characterized by special brightness, both for the ellipsoidal glass wall (built by John Hajnal) and for the vault consisting of variable length corrugated structures and large openings creating an extraordinary luminescent plot.

The realization of the auditorium has seen the involvement of architect Vittorio Nervi who was responsible for the work site on behalf of his father Pier Luigi with the mandate to check step-by-step the whole construction process of a work among the most important of the twentieth century for structural complexity and high symbolic value. The Aula Nervi, which is perfectly preserved, underwent a change in 2008 when the fiber reinforced cement roof, still in excellent conditions, was substituted by photovoltaic panels intended to create a space for ventilation.

 

[Bre6785]

Yes. Ive read all i can about it and its architect. I just find it so “off” that a pope would agree to have his audience hall within the head of a snake! He literally looks like he is sitting in its mouth (between what can only be described as the “fangs”). When he is sitting on stage. And the depiction of Christ’s resurection that is normally on stage looks like a demon coming out of hell.

 

[Bre6785]

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[Bre6785]

The last part makes me wonder what his intent was. “High symbolic value”

 

[Wampa]

I guess it kind of looks that way if you’re standing in exactly that one spot. It’s a giant structure and it certainly doesn’t look like that from 99% of the vantage points. I’ve been there and it didn’t look like it in person from any of the parts I was in.

It’s one thing to dislike the general architecture of it (I don’t care for it myself), but this charge is just anti-Catholic hogwash. It’s coincidental.

 

[Genesis315]

Seriously though, it’s an unintended effect from a perspective. In general, this bad art is from certain churchmen spending a ton of money trying to be contemporary, hip, and cool and failing spectacularly at it.

 

[Bre6785]

I certainly hope so. I will concede since i have never personally been to the building. I know you can’t believe everything on the internet. It was something plaguing my mind though. Thank you for comments

 

[midori]

The parabolic vault is very geometric. It does remind me of what they do with modern architecture and concrete construction elsewhere—

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But I think the problem is, when you compare it to all the grandeur of the architecture that surrounds it, there’s no way that even the most technically advanced engineering can compare favorably, because it’s… cold? Sterile?

So, ultimately, it comes down to Math vs Art. The best art, IMHO, is frequently the Art that makes use of Math in an elegant way. But Math in the absence of Art is much harder to appreciate or warm up to.

 

[Fauken]

If the Catholic Church really was secretly under the control of Satan, we’re doing a pretty poor job of it if we brazenly make our architecture modeled after our diabolic leader.

 

[Start]

That is pretty hideous.

 

[tafan2]

Its really is ugly, IMO, put I certainly do not take any of the rest of your concerns seriously. Architecture really went through a bad period in general, and it certainly seems like churches took the brunt of it. But, as this audience hall shows, other types of public venues didn’t fare too well either.

I drive by a truly ugly Baptist Church most days, and cannot help be a little thankful just knowing it wasn’t only the Catholic Church which was victimized.

 

[Ardent_Fire]

For what it’s worth @Bre6785 – there are Catholics that have talked about these structures, too, usually among some of the more paranoid people within traditionalism and sedevacantism that believe it confirms that great evil infiltrated the Vatican in such a horrible way as to completely delegitimize the current pope and the Church.

I think these structures are ugly but I wouldn’t read too much into it. People can see whatever they want in clouds, too.