In 1947 Giovanni Michelucci was in charge of the reconstruction of St Mary and St Tecla Church, destroyed during the bombing of World War II.
It was decided to rebuild the church in a lot of south eastern outskirts of the city, at that time planted with nursery.
The project, after several revisions, was approved by the civil and religious authorities in 1949, but the construction began only in 1955, due to disagreements with the contractor on issues of structural stability of the building, and was completed in April 1956.
The church has a latin cross plan with a single nave, with short transepts inclined towards the apse.
The brick volume is punctuated by pilasters and stands on a high base of reinforced concrete, covered in red limestone slabs of Verona, with visible fossilized ammonites.
Light filters in through slit windows and large stained-glass windows in the apse and transept.
The reinforced concrete frame, that wraps horizontally the building, also features inside, in roof trusses, and in the isolated volume of the bell tower.
The interior space, simple and sober, presents 7 niches on both sides, formed by pilasters, and designed to host the Stations of the Cross, created by artists such as Quinto Martini, Flavio Bartolozzi and Jorio Vivarelli, to which also belongs the crucifix above the altar.
The base, advanced to the facade, contains the baptistery and chapel weddings, on either side of the entrance portal.
The building looks poor and austere, and recalls the building tradition of the mendicant orders; initial approach of Michelucci to the sacred space is marked more by a respect for the compositional heritage of the past than by creative impulses.
The use of brick, the pilasters on the facades, the simple design recall the nearby St Dominic Church, as stated in the same project report.
