Detail of the project ed. 2020

KLINKEN­BERG – ST MAR­T­IN’S CHURCH

Design­er	Arno Klinken­berg
Loca­tion	Wegen­er­str. 15, 68219 Mannheim
Design Team	Arno Klinken­berg Kat­ja Bathon
Year	2016
Pho­to credits	all Pho­tog­ra­phys by Wern­er Huth­mach­er Pho­tog­ra­phy, Berlin

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Con­ver­sion of the Mar­tin­skirche, Mannheim-Rhein­au (south)

Since the build­ing main­te­nance costs of the parish were dis­pro­por­tion­ate to its income, church prop­er­ties, the old parish hall and the rec­to­ry were sold to finance and imple­ment the ren­o­va­tion of the Mar­tin­skirche. The parish was able to main­tain its inde­pen­dent church work by “down­siz­ing”.

The essen­tial mea­sures Installation:

“Intar­sia” — the house-in-house concept
A calm, spa­tial­ly com­plex wood­en struc­ture which can accom­mo­date dif­fer­ent uses and require­ments of the parish was placed in the exist­ing church space. A wood­en struc­ture from a sub­­­trac­­tive-processed block of wood with a rudi­men­ta­ry, reduced shape was vivid­ly cre­at­ed for the func­tions that give this instal­la­tion its shape.
Through the “house-in-house con­cept”, space had been cre­at­ed for the spa­tial sep­a­ra­tion of the sacred and pro­fane areas. The sacral space was raised and the (pro­fane) space cre­at­ed below was des­ig­nat­ed for the community.
The ori­en­ta­tion of the entire wood­en struc­ture is based on the orig­i­nal ori­en­ta­tion of the church inte­ri­or and is detached from the out­er walls all around the exist­ing build­ing. Thus, the church inte­ri­or can still be per­ceived and expe­ri­enced as a con­tin­u­ous sacral space.

Inte­ri­or substance:
Rear wall open­ing in the choir
In the area of the for­mer apse, the above-men­­tioned open­ing was cre­at­ed to strength­en the exte­ri­or-space con­nec­tion of the ground floor or sec­u­lar com­mu­nal rooms.
Recon­struc­tion of the gallery, exten­sion of the bank place­ment area and altar platform
For the instal­la­tion of the wood­en struc­ture, the gallery, bench place­ment area and altar plat­form were removed.

Mate­ri­al­i­ty:
The defin­ing mate­r­i­al of the exist­ing build­ing, such as plas­ter and stone, were jux­ta­posed with a wood­en cube made of sil­ver fir for a cosy atmos­phere and spa­tial warmth. The homo­gene­ity of the wood­en con­struc­tion and the bright­ness of the sil­ver fir stand in stark con­trast to the dark floor cov­er­ings of mas­tic asphalt and quartzite on the ground floor. The choice of the sil­ver fir for the new prin­ci­ples of the sacred space addi­tion­al­ly empha­sis­es the homo­gene­ity and the result­ing calm and restraint of the pow­er­ful wood­en structure.

Sup­port structure:
The sup­port struc­ture of the adjust­ed struc­ture in the essen­tial com­po­nents is a sol­id wood con­struc­tion with cross-lam­i­­nat­ed tim­ber ele­ments for the load-bear­ing wall pan­els and a board stack ceil­ing. The ele­va­tor and the stair­case were also planned entire­ly in sol­id wood.
With the excep­tion of the acoustic ceil­ings on the ground floor, the con­struc­tion has been car­ried out in vis­i­ble qual­i­ty with con­cealed con­nec­tion details to match the design con­cept of a sub­trac­tive processed wood­en struc­ture. The reduc­tion of the joints in the wall ele­va­tions also fol­lows this objec­tive. In addi­tion to a homo­ge­neous appear­ance, the instal­la­tion effort and the quan­ti­ty of con­nect­ing means were reduced. The max­i­mum pos­si­ble size of the wall ele­ments could be planned as a func­tion of the entry por­tal of the build­ing and the max­i­mum load-bear­ing capac­i­ty of the exist­ing floor panel.
Since the wood­en struc­ture has rel­a­tive­ly large pro­jec­tions on both lon­gi­tu­di­nal sides, the para­pet of the sacral space has been con­struct­ed as a con­tin­u­ous cov­er­ing and is dimen­sioned as a can­tilever arm with the loads aris­ing there from the ceiling.
The required rein­force­ment of the set struc­ture is guar­an­teed by the wood­en wall pan­els. They were cal­cu­lat­ed as sin­gle wall sec­tions clamped into the strip foot­ing. As a result, addi­tion­al con­nect­ing means could be saved in com­par­i­son to wood­en wall ele­ments com­pared to a hinged frame struc­ture made of wood­en wall elements.

Ener­gy concept:
The “house with­in a house” con­cept opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using the result­ing buffer zone between the out­er wall of the exist­ing church build­ing and the wall of the adjust­ed wood­en construction.
Since the church inte­ri­or has to be kept at a con­stant tem­per­a­ture in win­ter due to the organ, this tem­per­a­­ture-con­trolled space serves as a “buffer” for the spaces of the adjust­ed wood­en con­struc­tion. As a result, the vol­ume to be tem­per­a­­ture-con­trolled is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly reduced. The prin­ci­ple is reversed in the summer.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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