Art biennial Manifesta revives Germany's post-war churches

The 16th edition of Manifesta — the European traveling biennial for contemporary art and urban development — is taking place in the western German Ruhr region this year.

Under the title "This is not a church," the main program sees international artists designing commissioned works of art for 12 churches that have fallen out of use in Bochum, Duisburg, Essen and Gelsenkirchen.

They include German artist Emil Walde's large-scale installation made of old, damaged wired-glass windows from Duisburg Central Station — which are being put on display within the church's confessional booths.

And St. Anna Church in Gelsenkirchen is showing an exhibition featuring works by internationally renowned artists such as Ming Wong, Philipp Gufler and Cana Bilir-Meier. The program also offers a rare opportunity to gather and play basketball in a church.

Churches long in decline

The freefall in attendance at Catholic and Protestant churches underlines the decline in congregations in the Ruhr region, Germany's largest metropolitan area. Dozens of places of worship are deconsecrated each year.

It all began in World War II when the western Ruhr region was frequently struck by Allied bombing raids — with targets including both industrial sites and city centers.

The aim was to break citizen morale. The damage was devastating — with entire districts of Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum lying in ruins by war's end.

And churches were not spared. While housing was the focus of reconstruction efforts, churches were also considered critical places for people to practice their faith, find comfort and foster community.

But a new era of church architecture was already emerging.

Post-war church architecture emblematic of modern Germany

The young Federal Republic of Germany — where significantly more churches were built than in the socialist German Democratic Republic — was able to draw on a large number of architects who had embraced modernism even before World War II and shifted away from traditional styles.

Driven by social change and the separation of church and state, a highly experimental phase of church architecture had already emerged before the war.

Many of these architects then proceeded to resume their work in the post-war period — which also proved to be a boon for the country politically.

"The Republic of Germany was able to cast itself as a progressive, open and modern country on the international stage," explains Manuela Klauser, an art historian and member of the Sakralraumtransformation (Sacred Space Transformation) research group at the University of Bonn.

Working within ostensibly conservative churches, architects were able to look back to a pre-Nazi period when Germany had embraced these "open-minded ideas long before many other countries."

Architects thus reconstructed destroyed or damaged historical churches, planned new ones and oversaw their construction.

Rudolf Schwarz (1897–1961) was the creative force behind many Catholic churches. "At the moment, we are building almost only churches. Each time, it is hard and desperate work. You might think we ought to be getting better at it, but in reality the opposite is true — it gets harder every time," he said in 1957.

The high density of churches in the Ruhr region was explicitly driven by bishops, and around 1,000 were built.

They were nicknamed "slipper churches," because churchgoers could reach them in a few minutes — still in their slippers if they had overslept on Sunday morning and wanted to make it to mass on time.

"The church was supposed to be at the center of people's lives," says Klauser. "It wasn't just about attending service itself regularly but also about practical social services that connected neighborhoods, such as municipal libraries or programs for seniors and children."

Prefab churches: The Bartning emergency churches

New construction materials were scarce after the war, so architects utilized the masses of rubble and debris from destroyed buildings.

This approach is clear to see in the Protestant Gethsemane Church in Bochum, one of 43 so-called "Bartning emergency churches" in Germany, named after architect Otto Bartning (1883–1959).

Like Rudolf Schwarz, he, too, was a leading figure in modern church architecture during the Weimar Republic and post-1945. What set these churches apart was how they were delivered as prefabricated kits.

A mass-produced wooden structural framework formed the basic structure together with the roof structure, and local congregations would then add the foundation and walls.

Communities were able to choose the materials for the wall infill sections and enclosing walls themselves and further adapt and expand the building according to their needs.

Manuela Klauser says the emergency church program not only served an architectural purpose but also met social needs.

"People were not disempowered by being given a finished piece of architecture. They were invited to participate in its creation. This shared experience of building helped to strengthen the community itself."

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Democratic churches on equal footing with the people

Both money and time were in short supply, leaving no room for grandeur, while pretentious displays would have been out of step with the times.

Instead, the aim was to create a counterpoint to the imposing, monumental structures associated with the Nazi period.

The modernist churches had little in common with the grand buildings of centuries past, which sought to honor God through their beauty. In fact, some even appear remarkably plain today.

"These churches were designed for newly developing settlements," explains Klauser. "They were intended to help introduce people to a new democratic ideal and to be built on equal footing with them, using materials from everyday life."

"A defining feature of contemporary church construction planning is undoubtedly the idea that we are not building for eternity … as was often the intention in earlier centuries," stated a 1963 article in the Protestant weekly newspaper Der Weg. "Modern church builders construct churches for the people of today. They are taking into account tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow."

The fate of unused churches

Now that the "day after tomorrow" has arrived, many communities are asking what should become of these churches.

Manifesta encourages people to find answers to this question together. As part of its "16+" program, a jury selected 16 projects to be made into reality across 10 cities in the Ruhr region.

Among them is "Catch the Light - Build Bridges" at Christuskirche in Herne, which aims to become an intercultural meeting place through the experimental dance theater put on by the Pottporus Young Ensemble.

Another is "Go(o)d Kitchen: Gemeinsam Bauen und Kochen" (Go(o)d Kitchen: Building and Cooking Together), in the Heilige Familie (Holy Family) Church, which has been distributing food for the Oberhausen food bank since 2007. The idea is to host building and cooking workshops for young people in order to create a space for learning and community.

Manifesta 16 Ruhr is taking place from June 21 to October 4. Admission is free.

This article was originally written in German

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