Sant’Alessio alle Case Rosse is a very late 20th century parish church at Via Valle Castellana 4, in the Case Rosse suburb outside the Grande Raccordo Anulare (Circonvallazione Orientale) to the east. This is in between the Strada dei Parchi and the Via Tiburtina.
The patron saint is Alexis of Rome.
History
The parish was erected in 1982 in response to suburban development.
The church was completed in 2000, and is proving an important social as well as a religious centre in a rather isolated and downmarket suburb right on the city boundary (periferia della periferia).
However, the edifice has attracted very little attention online. Who was the architect?
Appearance
Layout and fabric
This looks like a concrete pre-fab. It is erected to a simple rectangular plan, having a flat roof with a projecting cornice having step molding on its bottom edge. The framework of the building involves ten transverse reinforced concrete beams, with the piers hidden by pre-cast concrete slabs forming the walls. The surfaces of these slabs are pebble-dashed.
The church is located on a slope, and is over a crypt. The altar end (facing the Via Santa Croce di Magliano over a football pitch) has its wall propped up on four low piers each painted in primary colour (red, yellow, blue, green), and you can see the windows of the crypt recessed behind these.
The walls occupying the long sides of the rectangle each have three large rectangular recesses, the back walls of which are (very oddly) bowed in a curve and revetted with polychrome crazy paving. Window strips are inserted either side of each curved back wall, except for the recess at the bottom left in which the wall is not curved and the sides have a pair of entrances. The left hand short wall has four thin vertical rectangular windows in two pairs, and a side entrance accessed by a wheelchair ramp.
Façade
The actual entrance is in the bottom right hand corner, which is chamfered to form an internal porch supported by a square pillar at the corner. This starts at the near recess in the long wall to the left, and the crazy paving is continued to flank the single doorway. The doors have stained glass panels.
The short wall to the right of the entrance has a tall cross (taller than the church) formed of slabs of grey concrete placed on edge on a backing of slabs of white concrete. The latter is joined to the church wall by a vertical panel of stained glass.
Campanile
There is an interesting tower campanile formed of two white concrete slabs, placed at a right angle but not touching. A metal spiral staircase is located at the angle. Each slab has a rectangular sound-hole at the top, and there is a flat irregular pentagonal cap. The bells are in a metal cage below the cap.
Access
The church is open, according to the parish website:
8:15 to 12:00, 16:00 to 19:30.
Liturgy
Mass is celebrated, according to the parish website (February 2016):
Weekdays 19:00;
Sundays and Solemnities 8:30, 11:00, 19:00.
External links
(The church's online profile is poor.)