Detail of the project ed. 2024

st-georg-church-in-hebertshausen / Germany

Design­er	Markus O. Kuntscher
Loca­tion	Am Wein­berg, 85241 Hebertshausen
Nation	Ger­many
Design Team	Markus O. Kuntsch­er, Architect Flo­ri­an Heim, Architect Susanne Haas, Mem­ber of Design Team
Year	2020
Pho­to credits	All Pho­tos, Interior&Exterior — Copy­right © Flo­ri­an Holzherr

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Church build­ings every­where are being con­vert­ed, reduced in size or adapt­ed to new require­ments. Rarely, how­ev­er, is the trans­for­ma­tion as fun­da­men­tal as in the case of St. Georg’s in Hebertshausen. Here it has encom­passed every­thing from the land­scap­ing of the wider sur­round­ings to the addi­tion of a funer­al hall and the design of the altar and win­dows in the list­ed church. 

Ini­tial situation

The munic­i­pal­i­ty of Hebertshausen is locat­ed in the Greater Munich area, 4 km from Dachau. The Church of St. Georg stands on a ridge edge in the mid­dle of the ceme­tery. First men­tioned in 1293, it was rebuilt sev­er­al times as a late Romanesque hall as well as in the Baroque peri­od. How­ev­er, hard­ly any of the his­tor­i­cal inte­ri­or had been pre­served, so that it was rel­a­tive­ly plain, pri­or to the project. Since the con­struc­tion of a new, larg­er parish church below the edge of the site in the 1960s, St. Georg has served pure­ly as a ceme­tery church, and exten­sive struc­tur­al dam­age meant that it required com­plete renovation.

Church build­ing

In order to strength­en St. Georg’s impor­tance as a ceme­tery church, it has been giv­en a new entrance on the west side along its lon­gi­tu­di­nal axis. Not only does this allow for much eas­i­er access for the dis­abled and elder­ly, it also allows coffins to be trans­port­ed inside with dig­ni­ty. As the west facade stands exact­ly on the slope edge, an exte­ri­or plateau had to be cre­at­ed onto which vis­i­tors step out when exit­ing the church. The entrance open­ing and the sub­struc­ture of the plateau incor­po­rate the arch shape that can be found in var­i­ous forms in the his­tor­i­cal build­ings on the ceme­tery grounds, includ­ing the retic­u­lat­ed vault in the choir room, the Romanesque win­dows of the church, the round-arched win­dows of the mor­tu­ary and, last but not least, the ser­rat­ed frieze of the church facade.

Inside, stairs pre­vi­ous­ly sep­a­rat­ed the choir and altar from the nave. Now the new floor ris­es grad­u­al­ly from the west entrance towards the choir, leav­ing only two steps to be ascend­ed. Chairs instead of bench­es make the room flex­i­ble for dif­fer­ent forms of celebration.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

BACK TO PROJECTS PAGE