Скачать или смотреть Holy Cross Church in Chur (Heiligkreuzkirche), a brutalist concrete church by Walter Maria Förderer

Holy Cross Church in Chur, Heiligkreuzkirche, is a Roman Catholic parish church and community center in the Masans quarter of Chur, Switzerland. It was built between 1967 and 1969 by the Basel born architect and sculptor Walter Maria Förderer in exposed concrete. The complex stands at Masanserstrasse 161 and combines church, parish center and kindergarten as a strong figure along the main road.

The building is one of the most important Swiss church buildings in board formed exposed concrete. The nave and the heavy tower are stepped and faceted, so that the whole ensemble reads as a large sculptural object rather than a traditional church. From the street, the polygonal tower with two concrete crosses forms a gate into an inner atrium, around which the church hall, parish rooms and community spaces are grouped.

Inside, the dark sanctuary is laid out in a half circle around a wooden altar, but without any actual curves. Angular walls, deep side niches and narrow roof lights create what Foerderer called an “staged sacrality”, where concrete, shadow and light shape the feeling of a sacred space. The polygonal tower holds four bells and the organ was added in 1974.

The Heiligkreuzkirche has been recognised as a key work of Swiss brutalist church architecture and was chosen as one of the “52 best buildings” in Graubuenden from 1950 to 2000.

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