Detail of the project ed. 2020

MÜH­LEISEN + PART­NER – APOS­TOLIC CHURCH

Design­er Dipl.-Ing. Jochen Uhlmann
Loca­tion Den­ner­straße 104/1+102, 70372, Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt, BW
Design Team

Müh­leisen und Part­ner Pla­nungs­ge­sellschaft mbH
Architekt Dipl.-Ing. Joachim Uhlmann
Year 2015
Pho­to credits

Kurt Enten­mann, Korb
Max­i­m­il­ian Seib­ert, Stuttgart

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The church

The fas­ci­nat­ing struc­ture is locat­ed in the heart of a res­i­den­tial area sur­round­ed by his­toric Art Nou­veau build­ings. Here its oval shape cre­ates inter­est­ing spaces while keep­ing suf­fi­cient dis­tance from the neigh­bor­ing build­ings. The diag­o­nal shear wall at the entrance nat­u­ral­ly invites the vis­i­tor into the access tract. This room cre­ates a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence when enter­ing the impres­sive oval-shaped wor­ship hall made from insu­la­tion concrete.

Prob­lem setting

The pre­vi­ous church on the site was erect­ed in 1916. The build­ing was much larg­er and was attached to the perime­ter block devel­op­ment in the mid­dle of Stuttgart’s green and qui­et “Nord” dis­trict. The con­gre­ga­tion desired the con­struc­tion of a new and more com­pact church build­ing but zon­ing law restric­tions pre­vent­ed this at first. Only through an open dia­logue between all neigh­bors and the local author­i­ties was a break­through even­tu­al­ly achieved. All neigh­bors vot­ed for the new church con­struc­tion based on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent zon­ing con­cept. This process also yield­ed won­der­ful con­cep­tu­al results: the unique build­ing was able to win the neigh­bors’ accep­tance before con­struc­tion. The new con­cept moved the high­er church build­ing for­ward towards the street and left the low­er aux­il­iary build­ing to occu­py the inner area of the block. This “urban repair” improves the design qual­i­ty of the entire quar­ter. Every direct neigh­bor also enjoys a great­ly improved access to sun­light due to the oval shape of the main part of the church building.

Inside spaces

The oval wor­ship hall gains a friend­ly and excit­ing atmos­phere from its indi­rect light­ing. Dif­fer­ent solar alti­tudes cre­ate indi­vid­ual light set­tings. The cen­tral loca­tion of the litur­gy is a min­i­mal­is­tic altar made from a dark root wood indige­nous to the area. A gallery is inter­posed at the back of the hall. A rec­tan­gu­lar, sin­­gle-sto­ry struc­ture con­tain­ing aux­il­iary spaces forms a spine for the build­ing ensem­ble. The entrance foy­er is locat­ed where this rec­tan­gle con­nects to the oval of the wor­ship hall. This inter­sec­tion posed var­i­ous chal­lenges for design and con­struc­tion. Addi­tion­al aux­il­iary spaces and tech­ni­cal instal­la­tions are locat­ed in an under­ground level. 

Engi­neer­ing

All walls and ceil­ings are mono­lith­ic casts of heat-insu­lat­ing light­weight con­crete mixed from a cus­tom recipe with col­or­ing. The walls and ceil­ings are thick mea­sur­ing 60cm and 45cm respec­tive­ly. The oval of the wor­ship hall is fin­ished on the inside and out­side with lime plas­ter. The aux­il­iary build­ing is also cast in light­weight con­crete, but fin­ished in fair-faced con­crete. Togeth­er with the spe­cial con­crete mix­ture this cre­ates the appear­ance of a nat­ur­al rock surface.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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