The historic Sant Francesc Church, renovated by David Closes
The Sant Francesc Church almost got demolished. It used to be a beautiful church that was originally built between 1721 and 1729 by Franciscan priests. However, over the years the church started to deteriorate. Eventually it got neglected and was very close from becoming nothing but a memory.
The church is an important historic monument so just watching it get destroyed was very sad. Even though there were people that wanted to demolish it, the church managed to survive and the town of Santpedor decided to renovate it. It was a bold move, given the fact that the church was is extremely bad shape. It had holes in the walls and a severely damaged façade. Architect David Closes was chosen to restore the church and to transform into a cultural space that could one again be used.
The architect had to find a way to preserve the original charm of the building and to preserve as much as possible from the structure while also adding the modern elements that were necessary to make the building usable again. It took him seven years to complete this difficult project. He preserved the damaged façade and the liturgical spaces as well as the beautiful arches and anything he could salvage from the ruined building. Some areas were just too damaged to be restored so the architect decided to replace them with modern volumes. This way he salvaged everything that he could and replaced everything that was too ruined to save.