Detail of the project ed. 2016

auto­bahnkirche-siegerlan­­dau­­to­bahn-church-siegerland / schneider+schumacher

Design­er	Michael Schumacher
Loca­tion	Elk­ers­berg / 57234 Wilnsdorf
Design Team	Michael Schu­mach­er, Hans Eschmann, Ker­stin Högel, Alexan­der Volz, Ragu­nath Vasude­van, Elmar Lorey, Jana Heidacker
Year	2013
Pho­to credits	Jörg Hempel (JH 2271- 33, 35, 53, 57, 80, 83, 98, 106) Helen Schif­fer (Helen Schif­fer- 08, 10)

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

In March 2009 schneider+schumacher won a com­pe­ti­tion run by the Fördervere­in Auto­bahnkirche Siegerland e.V. Build­ing work began in March 2011. The con­se­cra­tion and open­ing of this build­ing, Germany’s 40th Auto­bahn church, took place on 26 May 2013.
The three-dimen­­sion­al trans­la­tion of the church pic­togram – a stylised white sil­hou­ette of a tra­di­tion­al vil­lage church – can be seen from both the motor­way and the ser­vice sta­tion. From close-up the church appears to grow out of the hill­side and vis­i­tors enter it via a raised walk­way lead­ing to a cov­ered entrance. Once inside, con­trary to the expec­ta­tions raised by the exte­ri­or of the build­ing, the design of the inte­ri­or comes as a sur­prise. The inner dome opens up to the nat­u­ral­ly lit area around the altar, illu­mi­nat­ed only from above through the two church spires. The fil­i­gree wood­en vault­ing also dis­plays a fine­ly worked cross-ribbed structure.
The plan of the new Auto­bahn church con­sists of a square nave with two cor­ner tow­ers and an access bridge from the south­west. All the out­er walls are formed in tim­ber-framed con­struc­tion. The tim­ber roof and wall ele­ments are cav­i­­ty-insu­lat­ed. The inner and out­er faces of the tim­ber mem­bers are clad with pan­els of OSB. The walls of the bridge are half-tim­bered and the access bridge floor con­struc­tion is clad on both sides with dou­ble-faced OSB. The entire façade of the church and the con­nect­ing bridge was sprayed with white polyurethane damp-proof­ing material.
Once inside the vault­ed entrance, the inner dome opens up to the altar. This area is nat­u­ral­ly illu­mi­nat­ed only via the church tow­er above. With­in the pre­dom­i­nant­ly square ground plan, semi-cir­cu­lar areas cre­at­ed by the inner dome at the edges allow the areas that lie out­side the visitor’s line of vision to be used as a sac­risty and as sup­ple­men­tary spaces e.g. for chair storage.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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