Detail of the project ed. 2020

BFA – HEILIG GEIST CHURCH

Design­er Matthias Lud­wig
Loca­tion Gäus­traße 5, 72108 Rot­ten­burg am Neckar, Germany
Design Team

Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Matthias Ludwig
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Antje Krauter
bfa I büro für architektur

Year 2017
Pho­to credits

Valentin Wormbs, Stuttgart

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Con­ver­sion and ren­o­va­tion of the Heilig Geist Church in Rot­ten­burg-Ergen­z­in­­gen, Octo­ber 2017

“Under a tent roof”

A church as an open space, which is adapt­ed to the needs of the present with pre­cise instal­la­tions: some­times a suc­cess­ful con­ver­sion con­sists of doing only the bare neces­si­ties, but with con­vic­tion. The catholic Holy Spir­it Church in Ergen­zin­gen, part of the parish of Rot­ten­burg am Neckar in the dis­trict of Tübin­gen, was built in the six­ties by father and son Eugen and Rain­er Zins­meis­ter. This impres­sive build­ing has now been ren­o­vat­ed by bfa | office for archi­tec­ture from Stuttgart. The require­ments for this project were typ­i­cal of those for many con­gre­ga­tions in Ger­many. On the one hand the size of the build­ing no longer cor­re­spond­ed to the num­ber of mem­bers and the litur­gi­cal prac­tices, on the oth­er the com­mu­ni­ty need­ed more space for addi­tion­al activ­i­ties. The fixed seats have there­fore been reduced in num­ber from 600 to 200, which can be flex­i­bly sup­ple­ment­ed as required by an addi­tion­al 100. This has cre­at­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for sec­u­lar uses of the church space such as con­certs or exhi­bi­tions. By means of var­i­ous fit­tings made of var­nished hem­lock pine and light-coloured con­crete, bfa make dis­tinc­tions with­in the build­ing in both litur­gi­cal and prac­ti­cal terms. The focus is still on the altar area and the cor­re­spond­ing „com­mu­ni­ty island“, which have been sup­ple­ment­ed by an open bap­tistry and a more inti­mate meet­ing area locat­ed under the organ loft. The chair store, a small tea kitchen and toi­lets are also locat­ed here.
The design of these spa­tial inter­ven­tions stands in con­trast to the exisit­ing build­ing, but does not negate it. A sense of con­ti­nu­ity should be delib­er­ate­ly estab­lished, achieved, amongst oth­er means, by mono­lith­ic forms and sym­pa­thet­ic mate­ri­als. In addi­tion Transso­lar have pro­vid­ed the build­ing with an eco­nom­ic approach to ener­gy use, while the sen­si­tive illu­mi­na­tion is by Din­nebier Licht. The suc­cess­ful design is com­pli­ment­ed by abstract litur­gi­cal objects by the sculp­tor Her­bert Lan­kl, which are in keep­ing with the archi­tec­tur­al spir­it of the time of the church‘s orig­i­nal construction.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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