“Modern sacred building in Cologne”: Can this treasure be saved? | EUROtoday

The architectural competitors for the St. Engelbert Church in Cologne-Riehl, which was introduced at first of 1930, was rapidly determined. The pastor and the group spoke out in favor of Dominikus Böhm’s design. However, the Vicariate General requested “to examine whether it is possible to take away the strangeness of the building by mitigating the novelty”.

The grasp builder, who was appointed to the newly based Cologne manufacturing facility colleges in 1926, was in a position to allay the considerations and realized the expressionistic bolstered concrete constructing clad in crimson brick with none compromises. His “star dome project with a free-standing tower,” popularly often known as the “lemon squeezer,” is taken into account the masterpiece of contemporary church structure.

The reservations about metal, concrete and glass diminished after the Second World War. However, the development strategies, spans and spatial shapes that had been doable with them weren’t at all times properly obtained by the communities. Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic kinds, which had been binding till 1914, remained the bulk style and corresponded to the picture of what an actual church ought to seem like.

In the Archdiocese of Cologne, nevertheless, not like in most dioceses, constructing designs weren’t created by the church authorities, however – usually after smaller competitions – by freelance architects who competed with unconventional, usually daring plans. Also theologically progressive, their ideas anticipated the Council’s calls for for “conscious and active participation of all believers in the Eucharist”. Josef Cardinal Frings promoted modernity and in addition used the constructing subsidies from the church tax to implement his concepts.

This constellation gave Cologne a decade of sacred structure that’s distinctive in its high quality, variety and abundance: between 1955 and 1965, 85 Catholic and 68 Protestant church buildings, giant chapels and group facilities had been constructed. Particularly on the Catholic facet, a phalanx of church builders was shaped who, led by Rudolf Schwarz, the final planner of the reconstruction, his early sponsor Dominikus Böhm and his son Gottfried, had been in pleasant competitors: Emil Steffann, Karl Band, Josef Bernard, Fritz Schaller and Hans Schilling had been among the many exponents who had been supported by a circle of artists who had been entrusted with the furnishings.

The guide “Modern Sacred Building in Cologne” is centered round this church growth, which covers a wider vary and spans a century, from 1918 to the current day: from Bruno Taut’s glass home, in-built 1914 for the Werkbund exhibition (and though it appears to be like prefer it, not a sacred constructing), and Otto Bartning’s metal church, additionally momentary, for the “Pressa” exhibition in 1928, to the Islamic Cultural Center in Müngersdorf, a domed one Complex by the architectural agency Gerkan, Marg and Partner, which is scheduled to open in 2026, the compendium is sufficient – 208 buildings in whole, together with synagogues and mosques, chapels and prayer homes of free church buildings and spiritual communities.

The Protestant homes of worship aren’t uncared for in Catholic Cologne: The Melanchthon Church (1930) in Zollstock by Theodor E. Merrill was the primary sacred constructing of the “new building” and have become a pioneer, much like St. Engelbert by Dominikus Böhm.

The church constructing kind is a factor of the previous. The final new Catholic constructing, St. Catherine of Siena, was constructed by Heinz and Nikolaus Bienefeld in 2003 within the new suburb of Blumenberg. It shouldn’t be solely since then that church buildings have been closed, profaned, transformed into columbaria, outdated folks’s houses, occasion places, destroyed or demolished.

Eye-catchers like St. John the Evangelist (“roof-only building”) by Karl Band in Stammheim or St. Laurentius by Emil Steffann in Lindenthal are additionally in peril: one was razed in the summertime of 2025, the opposite, close to the college and appropriate as a lecture corridor, is a listed constructing – and has been empty for six years. Vandalism by omission.

Dealing with church areas is a social job. The publication undertakes nothing greater than a list, compact, catalog-like and arranged by metropolis district. The authors – Martin Bredenbeck, Philipp F. Huntscha, Kirsten Lange-Wittmann, Margit Ramus, Carsten Schmalstieg, Ludmila Siman and the editors – maintain again from making assessments: The wealth that threatens to be misplaced is self-explanatory. By inviting you to take a more in-depth look, the guide initiates a change of perspective that sees the issue as a possibility. This church treasure can’t be saved in a museum. Imagination of use is required.

“Modern sacred building in Cologne”. Edited by Hiltrud Kier and Martin Struck. With a foreword by Henriette Reker. Publisher of the Walther König bookstore, Cologne 2025. 480 pages, illustrations, br., €18.