Stockholm Methodist church is transformed into a social hub

Meeting Place Mariatorget is a new social hub born from the conversion of Saint Paul Church into spaces for the community, including dining facilities for those in need, an event hall, and offices for the NGO Stockholms Stadsmission. The project by Spridd for the transformation of the neo-Gothic church, currently a nominee for the Mies van der Rohe Award, works on the idea of infrastructuring a multi-purpose square space at the center of the nave around which smaller rooms and service areas are organized. The 200 people who can access it simultaneously will have at their disposal a new civic hall, welcoming and flexible in its uses. The previous longitudinal layout is converted into a non-directional system, a kind of square delimited by the historic edges of the church and the new walls of the galleries, which take on an urban character.

The addition of service galleries occurs with great naturalness, seeking an intonation with the pre-existing elements that ensures perceiving the transformation of the building as a harmonious evolution of its architecture. As often observed in the adaptative reuse of ancient buildings for contemporary needs, this architecture embodies a design approach where the contemporary does not necessarily imply opposition to the historical. Despite being clearly modern, the new elements seamlessly complement the existing ones, primarily because of the chromatic balance and reflective surfaces of the internal fixtures.

The exteriors underwent restoration work to bring back the building to its original appearance, severely compromised by multiple alterations along the 20th century. These modifications have been mapped and subsequently removed following a meticulous philological study.