undone in church

Last week in give us this day, I commented about what appeared to be the very odd architecture of the church on the Melaque square: Parroquia de San Patricio. And I was not alone. I met a young American couple, who live in the village. They described it as "the unfinished church."


As I stated in my last post, it is finished. What appears to be unfinished are the large barrel arches that form the roof of the church. Each vault is open to the outside. That feature turns the entire structure into a natural air conditioner.


After I wrote the last post, I found this photograph in my collection:





If you look carefully, you can see the openings in each vault. The "unfinished" look is echoed in the clock tower's open structure. No colonial town, with its tarted-up Baroque facades, can boast of this type of simple beauty.


Of course, this is the type of beauty that is usually translated in polite society as: "She has a lovely personality."