Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Carmen

The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Carmen stands in the Levante district of Benidorm, behind the beach of the same name, and represents the most contemporary face of the city's religious architecture. It was built to serve the district's growing population and the maritime devotion of many local families, since Our Lady of Carmen is the patron of sailors. Surrounded by hotels and apartment blocks, its setting captures the contrast between high-rise, tourist-driven Benidorm and the quieter neighbourhood life still organised around the parish, largely out of sight of the seafront crowds a few streets away.

Brutalist architecture

Unlike the historic churches of the Casco Antiguo, this church is brutalist in style, with exposed concrete used as both a structural and decorative element, most noticeable on one of its side façades and throughout the interior. It has no free-standing bell tower like most churches in the area: the belfry is built into a block of housing that belongs to the parish itself. The result is a simple, functional building, made bright by the large window sections running along its walls.

Parish life

The interior, plain and largely unornamented, stays fully consistent with the exterior. Beyond daily Mass, the parish also plays a social and community role, hosting popular processions, catechism classes and neighbourhood gatherings that keep a degree of local life going in an area otherwise dominated by tourism. Anyone wanting to compare this building with the city's traditional religious architecture can find the 18th-century Iglesia de San Jaime y Santa Ana a short distance away in the Casco Antiguo. For more of Benidorm's contemporary architecture, the Rascacielos InTempo is also nearby, in the same Levante area, and the Parc de l'Aigüera offers a shaded place to walk afterwards, a useful option once the midday sun is at its strongest.