gottfried böhm, architect: maria königin des friedens pilgrimage church, neviges, germany 1963-1972
pilgrimage church, maria königin des friedens, neviges, germany
1963-1972.
architect: gottfried böhm, b.1920.
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climbing the stairs and galleries that surround the cavernous main space, I found that böhm himself had not settled with accommodating the masses for the pilgrimage which was once a mass event - he had made room for those who must observe things at a distance, in private or within an intimate group of people: he had made room for the individual. and he had done so by offering several priviliged positions from which to witness the ceremonies, the most dramatic of which reminded me of caspar david friedrich's Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, the portrait of a lone mountaineer or artist pondering the sublime.
böhm so clearly connected postwar modernity with german romanticism, not just expressionism.
german spirituality is a thing largely forgotten today. the production of cars have taken its place. the cruel parody of german philosophy and culture which served as a justification of nazism saw to that. after 1945, everybody wanted a materialist germany, not least the germans.
somehow, you cannot think about german culture without returning to the wars.
gottfried böhm's father, dominikus, had been the leading catholic church architect of the reconstruction following WWI. his works are extremely diverse, spanning expressionism, stark romanesque historicism and the most clearheaded modernist sachlichkeit.
gottfried himself, in turn, became a leading church architect of the reconstruction after WWII, his works even more diverse, harder to pin down, than those of his father. but he only came that far after serving on the eastern front early in the war. he was injured and returned to germany where he studied sculpture and architecture, nazi style, in münchen.
today, his sons are talented church architects, even if their production is considerably smaller than that of the two previous generations, no doubt owing to the delay in the arrival of WWIII...
the paradox which is gottfried böhm - politically conservative, religious, yet radically modern - was born out of this: the continuity of the bourgeois dynasty, the family of religious architects, and the inescapable and violent reaction to his war time experiences, be they on the battlefield or in the nazi controlled classrooms of the academy in münchen.
there can be no doubt that he felt a new language of building had to be developed after the collapse - and not least moral collapse - of german culture. but the new language was used to insist that a church was a spiritual building and not some embarrassed, abstract construct presented by the atheist architect to the ignorant masses; it was used to uphold the idea that german postwar culture could not be reduced to the materialism of the wirtschaftswunder.
being an atheist materialist myself with no talent for community and little trust in institutions, I have to say this: böhm's position was not self-evident. it was at heart, I believe, a position of opposition; a quixotic critique of modernity coming from the right; an insistence on continuity conducted with modernist means.
and what means...
for what we might term böhm's heroic period from the late 50's to the early 70's, he was surely a member of that other tradition of modern architecture we usually connect with people like aalto, erskine, utzon in the north and häring and scharoun in germany - equally for the experimenting compositions and constructions as for his sensitivity to use, to site, and to the relationship between the individual and the institutions his buildings represent.
but for böhm, the language of architecture remained in a state of flux. to the onlooker, the diversity of his oeuvre can be bewildering. böhm frustrates our need for the recognizable which may be one of the reasons for the waning interest in his work outside germany. at heart an instinctive architect, he has never subscribed to any theory, nor presented any of his own.
my gottfried böhm set so far.
more words, yada, yada, yada.
Comments and faves
camera_obscura [busy], i,etc., schromann, jmtp, and 40 other people added this photo to their favorites.
scleroplex (53 months ago | reply)
awesome photo!
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
awesome place :)
it is a stitch, by the way, of several photos
GeoNando (53 months ago | reply)
Incredible interior architecture, impressive.
camera_obscura [busy] (53 months ago | reply)
Very interesting.
postpanglossian (53 months ago | reply)
Yes, thanks so much for all these pictures of this building and thanks also for the perspective-producing background and analysis!
i,etc. (53 months ago | reply)
This feels very primordial... almost pagan.
veravang (53 months ago | reply)
Oh - the interior is also incredible!!! Like in the cave...I have to go and see it once.
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
thanks, all. it is a very powerful interior and I must recommend a visit to neviges should you be anywhere near cologne. I have two or three more interiors before we move on to the next böhm project, so hang in there!
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
Wonderful. I especially appreciate the comparison to Friedrich. It certainly has that feel when one stands up there on the edge of the railing. Also true is the incredible amount of intimacy which is provided for the pilgrim when one stands up there, even if one is only one of approx. 7000 (capacity).
If one squints a little bit and imagines the light area in the back as a positive space, and the surrounding black as negative (night sky), then it looks like one is seeing a night-view of the exterior........
It is a shame that the interior lights were on, as it certainly takes away from the dramatic effects which the natural lighting is capable of creating (the original lights were low-watt street-lights on masts, identical to those outside, much like how he used the same paving treatment for the interior and exterior, underlining how one finds oneself on a path). The 500 watt halogen spotlights tend to kill the mystique of the place, presenting everything on a platter from the moment one walks in......
When I first visited on an overcast day, all lights were off and it was at first pitch black. One only saw an orange glow coming from the large stained-glass window behind the pulpit. But as my eyes got used to the available light, entire new worlds opened up before me, layer for layer. I could only make out the folds of the roof after about 10 minutes. Probably the closest thing to an out-of body experience without drugs that I will ever have. One of my friends with me had to leave after about 5 min. as it freaked her out.
Unfortunately, as a absolute novice, all my negatives turned out white as a result, as I had no idea how long to expose and couldn't imagine that 30 seconds or so wouldn't be enough....
I later learned from my wife how she would sometimes open the shutter for a 1/2 hour or so or longer, walking throught he picture with a flashlight, highlighting areas etc.....
Again, I appreciate your well thought-out background information and critiques. I think you are right on track. He has mentioned his regret of the erosion of 'institutions' more than once.
wowo72 (53 months ago | reply)
wow, that's a powerful, and almost spooky interior.
You have been quite good at building up the atmosphere, dosing those photos one by one :)
Can't wait to see next episode.
by the way, what are the acoustics there? must be quite a big room for 7000 people, but does it feel intimate acoustically?
Iqbal Aalam (53 months ago | reply)
Found your description and photos helpful in filling a big gap in my grasp of matters 'ritualistic'. Thanks
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
iqbal - you are welcome!
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
wojtek - I didn't test the acoustics as I felt I was intruding somewhat. I got the impression that even the smallest beep from the camera was amplified by the space and could be heard everywhere.
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
chris - I hope you are not being polite. it is important that you correct my ramblings.
böhm is so difficult to grasp. but certain things like the plan of the kinderdorf (which I am really sorry I missed), the care for the individual discussed above, the transparency of the counsil chamber in bensberg, the continued concern for the meaning of institutions - these things place him alongside aalto and scharoun.
the group of people I mention in the text are all connected with either the scandinavian welfare state or the social democracy of the weimar republic and it strikes me - as I have mentioned before - that politically that is not where we find a man like böhm. he is a conservative, not in terms of party politics and the sad populism of the right in europe today, but by temperament almost. and, as you mention, by his care for and belief in the traditional institutions of society.
his later projects are even more diffult to classify - at least for me - even if his ability to give shape to institutions has remained the same. it was a pleasant surprise to learn that the idea of a glass dome above the reichstag in berlin came from böhm and not foster.
do you know how his project for the mosque in köln is developing?
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
and I would love to see your wife's photos of a place like this. clearly mine are snapshots by comparison but hopefully they can add to the böhm-resource that flickr could become - is becoming - and which is badly needed with everyone else offering 40 by 40 pixel thumbnails of his works :)
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
No, not being polite at all. I am just impressed as to how you have been able to grasp some of the underlying themes of his work, if not way of life so, how shall I say...intuitively.
Sorry I didn't send you to the Kinderdorf as well, I was just happy to be able to steer you in Böhm's general direction. But that means that there are some things left over for your next visit. There are sooo many hidden jewels around here.
And I am sorry if I misled you about my wife/Neviges......the long-exposure shots were somewhere else, not there. Unfortunately. I need to do a road-trip together with her, as I, too, would love to see what she could do there.
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
The mosque is coming right along. Building permit has been applied for. A lot of the troubles around the structure have really mundane reasons, like how many cars will fit into the parking garage?
A large part of the show in Köln is devoted to the Reichstag and it's development. He was originally asked by Kohl to suggest how to rebuild it, and he always thought that the dome was the correct place for the politicians to meet, while the ground floor, directly below, be used by the public as a place to discuss what was being decided upon upstairs. A forum.
Not only do I dislike the form and detailing of the dome, but I see how it has been reduced to a tourist attraction. Empty.
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
actually, there was no way I could have visited another böhm building on this trip. I saw all buildings the office had planned plus three böhm and one zumthor project, most of it on public transport!
and yes, the list of important works that you can find within a 100 kilometers of köln is....well, it would take more than a summer holiday.
I have often spoken with friends about touring germany...we only made it to gut garkau last year...long ago, we discovered that it was possible to sail from copenhagen and through the canals to the rhine, visiting all of arne jacobsen's german projects on the way :)
that would be an amazing trip but who has the time? maybe when we are all unemployed in a year or two...
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
I haven't seen foster's reichstag, by the way, but I get your point. I try to steer clear of all the stuff that everybody has to see. architects display a lemming-like quality sometimes which I find disturbing.
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
Very funny.
Ben Lepley +_+ (53 months ago | reply)
I find myself being a lemming with a camera all the time. It takes time, patience, and research not to be one. I'm enjoying this series quite a bit so far, thanks
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
that's one very lonely lemming travelling through kashmir, ben ;)
and if it hadn't been for chris, I would have seen the zollverein, insel hombroich and kolumba on this trip - and you wouldn't have seen very many photos from it...
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
again, any thanks is payable in good danish beer.
Actually, your great photos and critiques are so rewarding, if anything, I owe you.
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
well, this will be easy since I accept beer as well :)
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
appears to me that now all we have to do is to arrange a meeting to exchange beer........
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
before the beer, we should gather this in a form of web resource. if nothing else then at least a flickr group with böhm's architecture.
google and yahoo tend to be very good at leading people to flickr because the content tends to be a lot better here, hi res photos etc. it has worked really well with my utzon photos and on a smaller scale with hugo häring. I think we should try the same for böhm.
should we put all the böhm generations in one group? and what would the name be? just "böhm"?
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
Um, how does one start a group? Do you have to be a pro?
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
www.flickr.com/groups/boehm/
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
it is an interesting group already!
schromann (53 months ago | reply)
Well done!
yes, coming along nicely. Like I've said before, not everything they have done sends my heart into palpitations, but it is good to see everything on one site. I have searched for certain projects, KNOWING there must be some photos of them out there, but I just haven't found the right search words yet.
seier+seier (53 months ago | reply)
good work. I know I have come across some of dominikus' churches by using the church or town name. of course, I can't remember which ones but it must be possible to reconstruct the searches.
.marsman (49 months ago | reply)
love your writings seier.
seier+seier (49 months ago | reply)
thanks, olmo. much appreciated :)
arndalarm (41 months ago | reply)
Great mood here. Unfortunately we couldn't get up to the galleries.
seier+seier (41 months ago | reply)
too bad. how was the light? was the sun out?
arndalarm (41 months ago | reply)
Actually y there was no light...
It was a day with dull light so the interior was freakin' dark, you could think it was night time. Apart from that I really liked the interior space, absolutely amazing.