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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Neviges Mariendom : By Gottfried Böhm

Löher Straße, Neviges, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Gottfried Böhm
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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When a miraculous engraving in copperplate of the Immaculata was brought to Neviges in the seventeenth century, it became a pilgrimage center for the religious.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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Around 1960, the church decided that they wanted to construct a new building, starting a competition which would result in a new church amidst a Franciscan monastery and other late-baroque architecture. This led to a series of competitions, eventually won by architect Gottfried Böhm, although initially his design was not accepted as the judges thought it to be exaggerated and manneristic.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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As is the case with all pilgrimage and religious architecture, the act of procession and the relationship between the space and a human body are crucial to create a sacred and all-encompassing experience. At the Pilgrimage church of Mary, or Mariendom, the procession begins at the bottom of an informal set of stairs and ends in a courtyard by the church. On the walk up the stairs, the visitor encounters a set of staggered semicircular bays to the east of the walkway which are supported by round piers.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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These bays mark different hostel rooms which are used by the pilgrims upon visiting, and they also function as a roofing over the path of the procession as it continues onward towards the church. More buildings, including a bell-tower, were designed for the spaces near the hostel rooms, but due to budget cuts the program was no longer affordable.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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Even with the lack of other new architecture surrounding the pilgrims as they begin to approach the church, the facade of Mariendom humbles visitors just the same. With its jagged and furrowed mass, it remains as one of the most monumental manifestations of a modern church building as a casted crystal mountain. In the secular context of the culture during the designing and construction periods, the church offered a promise of safety.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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The invariable nature of the extensive interior caves of both the main and lower churches, the chapel niches formed by jointless folds of concrete, the piers either free-standing or formed by the edges of the walls, and the folded sections illuminated only by small rooflights that peak just above the altar give a sense of protection to the pilgrims.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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The same experience that is had by the pilgrims approaching the church is also featured inside of the building, through a continuation in materiality with fanning bricks, streetlights and facade-like galleries that surround the center space. The art featured in the gallery includes sculptures by Elmar Hillebrand of Cologne, and the windows are done by Böhm himself.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
Click above image to view slideshow
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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As is the case with many structures built with innovative materials or designs, the maintenance of this church has proved to be somewhat of an issue. The sand-blasted and site-poured concrete did not have any insulation or damp-proofing upon installation as it was intended originally for summer purposes only. The members of the town decided to make it comfortable and enjoyable year round, so they furnished the church with a heater which changed the thermal behavior of the structure.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
Click above image to view slideshow
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
Click above image to view slideshow
It was suggested that the roof of the church be covered with lead or slate, but eventually it was painted with a light-colored paint sealant that unfortunately separates the roof from the walls visually. All of the money and time that went into making the church a perfect pilgrimage destination has taken its toll on the little town, as the streams of pilgrims started to dry up even during the planning and building period.
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
Click above image to view slideshow
Photo © Courtesy of Yuri Palmin
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Today the pilgrimage church is like a memory of another epoch… disturbing and magnificent.”

The people
Architect: Gottfried Böhm
Location: Neviges, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Competition: 1963
Construction period: 1964–1968
Project Year: 1963-72Photography: Yuri Palmin
References: Wolfgang Pehnt
Visit Neviges Mariendom's website: http://www.mariendom.de/


Note>>Location in this map, It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

About Gottfried Böhm:
Gott­fried Böhm is an ar­chi­tect prac­ticing in Co­lo­gne, Ger­many. His work ran­ges from the sim­ple to the com­plex, using many dif­fe­rent kinds of ma­te­ri­als, with re­sults that so­me­ti­mes ap­pear hum­ble, so­me­ti­mes mo­nu­men­tal. He has been de­scri­bed in the six­ties as an ex­pres­sio­nist, and more re­cently as post-Bauhaus, but al­most al­ways he stands alone in de­par­ting from the con­ven­ti­ons of es­ta­blis­hed ar­chi­tec­ture, see­king to go one step bey­ond.
Böhm him­s­elf pre­fers to be thought of in terms of crea­ting “connections” — for ex­ample, the in­te­gra­tion of the old with the new, the world of ideas with the phy­si­cal world, the in­ter­ac­tion bet­ween the ar­chi­tec­ture of a sin­gle buil­ding with the urban en­vi­ron­ment, ta­king into ac­count the form, ma­te­rial, and color of a buil­ding in its set­ting.
The Bens­berg City Hall, as well as the re­stau­rant he de­si­gned at Bad Kreuz­nach, both built on his­to­ric ruins, il­lus­trate his crea­ti­vity in joi­ning the old with the new.
Some of the con­nec­tions he re­fers to are also bet­ween pri­vate and pu­blic or semi-public spaces, new uses for de­ser­ted urban areas, and the ana­ly­zing of a de­sign pro­blem as both a boun­dary and a link. One of his pro­jects, the Zue­b­lin Cor­po­rate Head­quar­ters in Stutt­gart, straddling two newly in­cor­po­ra­ted town­ships, em­bo­dies many of Böhm's con­nec­tions.
Many of Böhm's pro­jects and pro­po­sals il­lus­trate his con­cern for urban plan­ning, i.e., the area around the Ca­the­dral and the Heu­markt area in Co­lo­gne; the Pra­gue Square in Ber­lin; the area around the castle at Saar­bru­ecken; the Lin­gotto Quar­ter in To­rino; and the city cen­ter in Bos­ton. Hans Klumpp, wri­ting in Bauen und Woh­nen, said, “For Böhm, ar­chi­tec­ture and urban plan­ning are ins­e­pa­ra­ble.”
Böhm has said, “I think the fu­ture of ar­chi­tec­ture does not lie so much in con­ti­nuing to fill up the land­scape, as in brin­ging back life and order to our ci­ties and towns.”
In 1981, Peter Davey in Ar­chi­tec­tu­ral Re­view, de­scri­bed some of Böhm's buil­dings as “unique sub­jec­tive works of art that showed Germany—and Europe—that the Ex­pres­sio­nist tra­di­tion was still alive. His brut mo­dern con­crete meets rag­ged me­di­eval stone with con­trast yet sym­pa­thy: the new forms are as com­plex as the old…” Davey was re­fer­ring in this in­stance to the town hall at Bens­berg and the Pil­gri­mage Church at Ne­vi­ges.
But his ar­ti­cle went on to re­view a more re­cent buil­ding, the civic cen­ter at Ber­gisch Glad­bach. Davey ack­now­led­ged that “as usual with Böhm, ever­y­thing new is new: there is no at­tempt to copy.” And fur­ther, Davey sta­ted, “Böhm has tra­ve­led a very long way from Ne­vi­ges, but he has never, in any­thing he has built, lost his won­der­ful, ori­gi­nal hu­ma­nity.”
Bergisch-Gladbach mar­ked a major change in the ma­te­ri­als used by Böhm, from mol­ded con­crete to glass and steel. of this change, Böhm has said sim­ply, “I use dif­fe­rent kinds of ma­te­ri­als on dif­fe­rent kinds of pro­jects. Today we can do things with steel and glass that we could not do be­fore. fle­xi­ble en­ough to change.”
In an ar­ti­cle that same year in Ar­chi­tec­ture and Ur­ba­nism (May), Do­nald E. Olsen prai­sed Böhm's works in the hig­hest terms, say­ing of the Church of the Pil­gri­mage at Ne­vi­ges, “Böhm's ability to de­ma­te­ria­lize this mas­sive struc­ture of mo­dern con­crete tech­no­logy through the ap­p­li­ca­tion of sheer vo­lume, shape and light-modulation, ad­van­ces many of the goals of mo­dern ar­chi­tec­ture and trans­cends and even trans­gres­ses some of its al­le­ged pre­cepts.”
Olsen added, “Neviges, to­ge­ther with a si­gni­fi­cant por­tion of Böhm's other work, pre­ce­ded by far, the cur­rent at­tempts to create ar­chi­tec­ture in a new pa­ra­digm de­scri­bed as ”post-modern … ear­lier ex­am­ples of his work … pre­da­ted by two de­ca­des or more the su­per­fi­cial parodying-of-history theme which is pre­sently the avant-garde rage in Ame­rica.“
Prai­sing the Bens­berg City Hall, Olsen sta­ted, ”…he has fused the new con­struc­tion with the old with an ease that see­mingly clo­sed the chro­no­lo­gi­cal gap … it should not be sur­pri­sing that such high qua­lity should ema­nate from an ar­chi­tect of rich eclec­tic pre­dilec­tion.“
Gott­fried Böhm was born in Offenbach-am-Main on Ja­nu­ary 23, 1920, the son of Do­mi­ni­kus Böhm, one of Europe's most re­spec­ted ar­chi­tects of Roman Ca­tho­lic churches and eccle­si­as­ti­cal buil­dings. Since his pa­ter­nal grand­fa­ther had been an ar­chi­tect as well, it is not sur­pri­sing that Gott­fried star­ted on that path.
His aca­de­mic ca­reer began in 1942, when he the Tech­ni­sche Hoch­schule in Mu­nich. He re­cei­ved de­gree in 1946. For ano­ther year, he con­ti­nued his edu­ca­tion, stu­dy­ing sculp­ture at the Aca­demy of Fine That trai­ning has been ap­p­lied often, since he mo­dels in clay of his buil­ding ex­te­ri­ors as he evol­ves a plan.
He worked in his father's of­fice as an as­sis­tant ar­chi­tect from 1947 to 1950. Du­ring that time he col­la­bo­ra­ted with the So­ciety for the Re­con­struc­tion of Co­lo­gne under the di­rec­tion of Ru­dolph Schwarz.
In 1948, he met and mar­ried Eli­sa­beth Hag­gen­mu­el­ler, who also is a li­cen­sed en­gi­neer and ar­chi­tect. They have four sons, three of whom have be­come ar­chi­tects.
Fee­ling the need for other points of view, in 1951, Böhm jour­neyed to New York where he worked in the ar­chi­tec­tu­ral firm of Ca­je­tan Bau­mann for six months. Se­veral more months were spent on a study tour of the United Sta­tes, du­ring which time he had the op­por­tu­nity to meet Mies van der Rohe and Wal­ter Gro­pius, two of the ar­chi­tects for whom he holds great ad­mi­ra­tion.
His study tour over, Böhm went back to work with his fa­ther in 1952. His father's in­flu­ence plus the ideas and theo­ries of Bau­haus, to quote Klumpp again, ”were, cle­arly ap­pa­rent in his first in­de­pen­dent pro­jects. Ne­ver­the­l­ess, his many sided skills enab­led him to over­come this phase quickly. He did not dis­co­ver a dif­fe­rent style; what he dis­co­vered was a clear con­vic­tion of the im­port­ance of every sin­gle ar­chi­tec­tu­ral as­si­gn­ment, no mat­ter how small, and he lear­ned that, along with the fac­tors of time and place, man is the most im­portant value to be taken into con­side­ra­tion.“
When his fa­ther died in 1955, Böhm took over the fa­mily firm. In the three de­ca­des since, he has ac­com­plis­hed many buil­dings, in­clu­ding churches,. mu­se­ums, thea­tres, cul­tu­ral and civic cen­ters, city halls, of­fice buil­dings, pu­blic hou­sing, and apart­ment buil­dings, many of the lat­ter with mixed use.
In his teaching, he warns against ”the exag­ge­ra­ti­ons of the his­to­ri­ci­zing mo­ve­ment, and mind­less imi­ta­tion of ear­lier eras.“ in the past, he has in­sis­ted on ”spiritually en­riching human va­lues in ar­chi­tec­ture,“ spea­king out against ”overcrowding the en­vi­ron­ment with un­ne­cessary de­sign fea­tures.“ He has op­po­sed both the re­duc­tivist ste­ri­lity, and the bru­ta­lism that reig­ned for a time. Alt­hough the lan­guage of his forms is not in the of modernist” style, he ad­he­res to many of the ethi­cal prin­ci­ples of the Bau­haus such as “austerity, ho­nesty, and ex­pres­sing one's own time in one's work.”
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