Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles

OUR LORD OF ANGELES.

Barriada del Solanillo de Roquetas de Mar.

Brief history

To speak of the Solanillo is to speak of a young architect Almeriense, D. Francisco Langle Granados (son of the famous architect D. Guillermo Langle Rubio, one of the most outstanding Almerien architectses of the first half of the last century), who accepted the challenge that, the National Institute of Colonization proposed to him, to project the construction of a town in the west zone of Roquetas de Mar. It was the last village of the INC projected, in 1968, in the province of Almería and the only one that is of an Almerian architect.

They had to think of a place and chose one, whose area framed the geographical limits of two of our fundamental and economic pillars, agriculture and tourism. But from the highlands of their situation and, let's say, almost at their feet, you can see what were the old ponds of the Salinas de Poniente, another of the riches of the area that, so much work and way of life, provided to the inhabitants of Roquetas, through their history.

Focusing on the church, Langle placed it in the center of his village, because, approaching the village, from the road, made what stood out outside the church's camper tower, to make it a reference element in the arid landscape.

The current tower is not the one that the architect had thought of at first, that would have been a slender pyramidal prism, but, that did not like the Directorate General of the INC, because it offered a different aspect of the usual bell towers of the colonization villages, which were more traditional. The current tower is by the architect Manuel Jiménez Varea. It is annexed by a porch that has been closed to the temple nave, and its outer wall is adorned by an Antonio Suárez ceramic mural with biblical motifs, while the Langle planes projected a tower as an isolated element separated from the church. The new plans are July 1970 and the construction ends in 1972.

The temple was built according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), therefore its plant fulfilled the function of bringing the liturgy closer to the faithful, discarding the basilical plants.

It is formed by three elongated triangles setting a fan-shaped plant and the presbytery is available in its vertex. At the top of the access façade are concrete stained glass windows that will give light to the temple along with the glass window of the presbytery that is at a lower level.

Antonio M. Suárez will be in charge of the stained glass windows located in the presbytery, main facade and on the sides, as well as the ceramic wall of the facade with biblical motifs. The ceramic cross road is from Julián Gil Martínez and the basrelieve of The Baptism of Teresa Eguíbar Galarza.

Currently, the parish priest of this church is D. Antonio de Mata Cañizares, who is also of the parish church Virgen del Rosario de Roquetas de Mar.

(The information sources consulted for this article have been: -The colonization villages in Almeria. Book edited by the College of Architects of Almeria. The Instituto de Estudios almerienses and the Cajamar Foundation.