His architecture

 

The architecture of Dom Bellot is based on harmony: The proportions of a building should be based on the sizes of the "golden tri-angle". A building of Bellot is ment to fit in its environment. A church should be among the people and not above. Bellot uses materials which are often used in the country he is building: In the Netherlands it is often brick, in France he uses also concrete and for a project in Uganda he proposes wood!

 

The exterior of Bellot’s buildings is often very simple, the interior is many times very colourful. His target is to build the interior as beautiful as possible, because it is the house of God. The base of his architecture is the use of simple materials, in a way that it is worthy to be used for a church. Nothing of the building should be camouflaged by fake structures. Everything of the structure must be visible and useful. Dom Bellot becomes a member of L'Arche, a group of artists whose goal it is to make modern religious art. Their symbol is the Arch of Noach. They try to use modern materials like concrete in sacral buildings. They reject copying old religious styles like gothic and roman styles.

 

In the Netherlands Bellot uses often brick as building material, elsewhere (like France) he uses also concrete. His only Dutch concrete church, the church of St. Teresia in Nijmegen, is demolished in 1993.

 

Important in Bellot’s churches is a free sight at the altar: That's why the pillars are as far at the side as possible. The room at the sides is used as walking space. The roof is supported by a series of brick or concrete arches. The arches of Bellot are parabolic (brick) or multi-angled (concrete).

This construction is the skeleton of the church. Everything is visible from the inside, even the wood of the roof.

 

 

The parabolic arch of Dom Bellot is often named a "chain arch", like the chain arch used by the Spanish architect Gaudi. This is a wrong comparison, because Gaudi used indeed chains to define arches. Dom Bellot did not use chains to try, he used mathematics!

His arches and measurements are all based on the tri-angle 31º 43" by 58º 17".

 

    

 

    

 

In the picture above you can see how an arch was calculated in six steps.

The height of a pilar, the beginning of the arche, was the key for all the measurements of the total building. Altering one of the measurements (i.e. the length of the nave, the height of the roof) would affect all measurements of the building: They are all connected to each other.

 

Dom Bellot was building in a modern architecture, with respect for the past. Using modern materials to build sacral buildings. Like he said himself: Innover la tradition: continue tradition.