The Church of Sant Esteve, located at the eastern end of the Barcelona municipality of Marganell, sharing its grounds with a cemetery, retains much of its Romanesque structure despite all the looting, fires, and revamps it has undergone over the centuries.

The project led by the architect Pere Santamaria aims to adapt the space for cultural and religious uses through three main actions: consolidation of the building’s structure, installation of a new glass roof over the central nave, and restoration of the access to the bell tower.

The structural consolidation involves restoring the walls, which means first removing deteriorated cladding. The new glass roof – set at a height of 5 meters, where the walls are flat and regular – is held up by a metal structure embedded into the original stone walls. This roof allows ventilation by means of a perimetral profile independent of the walls, which also channels rainwater into four gargoyles. In the apse, the structure adapts to the curvature of the walls, forming a half-circumference.

To minimize the project’s impact on the environment, natural materials are chosen for the pavements: sand under the large roof and fine gravel in the rest of the spaces, all on a geotextile sheet that will facilitate future archaelogical excavations.

The third action involved installs a metal staircase inside the bell tower, inaccessible since the Spanish Civil War. The metal grillse makes the entire interior of the tower visible, and the stairs culminate in a lookout giving panoramas of the surroundings and Montserrat beyond. The bell tower is lit with solar energy, thanks to photovoltaic panels on the roof of the cemetery.