Chiesa della Santissima Trinità

The Chiesa della Santissima Trinità rises three metres above street level in Milan's Paolo Sarpi district. A lateral staircase carries you up to the sagrato, an open churchyard that invites a pause before you step inside. Fritz Metzger, a Swiss architect, drew the plans for this modern parish church. Work ran from 1964 to 1967, replacing an older parish church that urban planning had swept away.

Six massive pillars in the shape of crosses carry the roof. Four of them stand inside and two out in the sagrato, so exterior and interior read as one continuous space. The floor plan is a square, thirty-three metres on every side. That shape lets the congregation sit in a semicircle around the altar and makes each service feel like a gathering. The design included a tall campanile, or bell tower, but no one ever raised it. The church keeps its imposing air all the same.

Over the years the interior has gained modern artworks and stained glass in strong colours. Among them hangs an ancient fresco from the demolished church of San Rocco alla Lupetta, a fragment older than everything around it. Outlasting the church it came from, it keeps this modern interior tied to its historical roots.