Our Lady of Good Counsel Church

fan shaped interior setting featuring high ceilings and multiple skylights, the client requested a sanctuary renovation that would integrate classically inspired design, noble materials, as well as Eucharistic symbolism and teachings found in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The altar of sacrifice was to be especially prominent, both in size and materials, with the gilded tabernacle and ambo completing the new liturgical furniture. To transform the apse and differentiate the sanctuary area, Granda proposed a well-integrated altarpiece structure that could serve to frame the centrally located altar and tabernacle. The altarpiece includes gilded carvings of wheat shafts and grapes together with Hebrew quotations from the Old Testament and Greek text from the New Testament. The Hebrew inscription is a line in which Abraham prophesied the coming of the Lamb (Genesis 22:8) while on the opposite side we find a line from the Gospel of St. John in which Jesus Christ declares to be the Lamb of God (John 1:29). The tabernacle with the relief scene of the Annunciation on the door has a form inspired by the biblical description of the Ark of the Covenant. Above the tabernacle, high above is suspended a Crucifix that was important to the parishioners and constitutes a link between the previous sanctuary and a renovated one. The transformation of this interior and further enrichment of its aesthetic program is completed with the installation of two statues: Our Lady and St. Joseph.