the colourful glass ribbon on the east wall of st. mauritius.
today i'm gonna dedicate this post to a special building here in wiesbaden, a building that sits not very far from where i work: the catholic church st. mauritius.
back in 2017 i shot my first pictures of the building itself, now it's time to show you the heart of it! i visited this church on open memorial day together with the dude, who loved this building as much as i did ( i think, haha ). the church is special because it is a total work of art, a dream-came-true example of brutalism at its finest, built with high quality construction materials and the intention to last centuries with its timelessness. i can honestly say that this building is probably my MOST favourite in all of wiesbaden, it's just so exceptional and unique and one of a kind! of course, in a city actually known for art nouvau / gründerzeit / historism architecture, where one building is more beautiful than the other because they are conventionally deemed nice on the eye, this is a daring thing to say. that's not to say that i dislike historicized architecture or historic styles at all, but i do love a good contrast, you probably know that by now, and this building is just the antithesis to the established architectural landscape in this city. but in such a breath-taking way!
st. mauritius had its beginnings back in 1959/60, when the first groundwork for the community center was put in place. but the actual church building was erected in 1967/68 and planned by the architects jürgen jüchser and peter ressel. all of the concrete used is a special one fabricated in wiesbaden by the manufacture dyckerhoff and was created with white cement, which is very fine and decorative.
i had always wanted to see this church from the inside. i had seen pictures of it before and i swore to myself i would look out for a possible open day, without having to visit it on mass sundays ( because how weird is an atheist woman attending a catholic church mass for the purpose of getting an insight look? yeah, you can guess how weird ). and there it was, reading a newspaper article about open memorial day, there stood the name of the church and that it was indeed open that day, as it is officially a landmarked building. and it had birthday as well! the church celebrated 50 years of existence last year and it was a good time to get to know it more intimately.
so let me show you the beauty of this exceptional building.
this is what you see when you enter, and it immediately leaves you stunned. every single fitment is made out of the white concrete, from the pews to the altar to the lectern to the tabernacle and even the candle holders. the only colour you can find in here is coming from the glass ribbon on the right, another glass window on the left ( hidden in the side choir ) and some blocks of yellow on the church walls and the pews. what i loved about the altar wall and the relief you see on there is something you need a little imagination for: within the colour block of white and yellow you can see a cross and the angulation of the diagonals form a special pattern around it... like two hands are enclosing the cross in a praying gesture. that image just seems so precious and lovely to me.
12 candles are stringed on the wall for the 12 stations of christ's ordeal.
the interior of the church was created by two artists: otto-herbert hajek ( reliefs and sculptural furniture ) & hans-georg schleifer ( glass work ). they managed to form a harmonic unity of functionalism, constructivism & art, which was like an ointment to my geometry loving heart. yellow, by the way, is supposed to represent the easter banner, a symbol of resurrection. all those reliefs on the side walls of the church also represent a scenery of christ's story, but for a laywoman like me, it is impossible to decipher them. to come back to the artists, o. h. hajek created a lot of public space sculptures and upon researching on him, i think i fell quite in love with his work. check out more of his art on this site as well! makes me want to seek out all the sculptures you can find in germany and document them. damn, sometimes i do have funny ideas.
inside the side choir you'll find the other glass wall, green, violet and yellow being the primary colours here ( while the glass ribbon in the main choir boasts an assortment of blue, red and crimson hues ). the stained glass is encased inside the concrete apertures, which i thought was an interesting way to create a 'window'.
it wasn't very easy to photograph this place, since the bright colour of the concrete overpowered the natural light that fell through the glass openings. i had to change the light settings of my camera to a darker one to appropriately portray the light of the window walls. and even that didn't do the trick well, because then the rest of the interior was too dark and didn't quite depict the actual brightness of the interior. i tried my best, but you'll have to excuse the different light settings. i am in no way a professional photographer and do it all for the fun of documenting.
the glass ribbon opens up toward the altar area, which in a way gives you the sentiment of epiphany and enlightenment.
a look into the back of the main choir, with the ribbon starting as a narrow band. the pews also are arranged in a way that open up towards the altar.
here you can see the yellow colour of the left wall touching the pews. only a few people were there to have a look at the church, and i was absolutely fine with that! a work of art like this church is best captured with close to no human interruption, i think.
here are some relicts of the former mauritiuskirche - after which the st. mauritius community was named. it was once the main church in wiesbaden, down in the city center, until it burned down in a great fire in 1850. this is basically what links this church, which was erected on a hill above the historical part of the city, to the lost church down in the old part of town. this way the old can live on within the new.
in the basement of the church you can find another little chapel, and it is situated in a part of the construction that was built in 1959/60. the architect for this 'underground' part and the adjacent kindergarten was martin braunstorfinger. he died before he could finish his work on the church, after which ressel and jüchser took over. the lovely glass panel in the back was pretty cute, so were the lectern and the little cabinet on the left. this chapel was so different from the above church halls, though. it was very cozy and contemplative ( instead of the abstract and coolness of the main church ) and you could find some reproductions of marc chagall's religious art hung on the walls behind, which i think always succeeds in giving a place an atmosphere of playfulness and imagination.
cabinet was made out of metal and embellished with blue enamel-like decor. i imagine that they store some reliquaries here.
the baptistery. i'm not sure if there was another one in the main hall, i don't remember one. so i guess they hold their baptizing rituals down here. loved the light opening back in those walls!
a close-up of the chapel lectern. quite a big gem stone was enwrought into the center of it.
after a bit of lingering down in the basement (😗), we went back up in the main hall again. this time i explored a little bit more of the altar space.
a good look at the aformentioned cross and the enclosing 'hands'.
this is the official lectern, incorporated into the design of the church, not moveable at all. in the back the altar desk, also built-in.
what would a catholic church be without its madonnas? i like the traditional addition to the otherwise very abstract building. and the little bouquet of flowers also provided an earthly element to the seemingly sterile surroundings. in the back you can see the tabernacle. i hear that the inside is also beautifully designed, but when we visited that day, it was closed up.
the concrete grate of the east wall with the stained glass up close. it looks a little bit skeleton-like?
the stained glass cast a magical fluorescing play of light unto the concrete walls in the corners. it looked like water ripples.
a change of perspective, now with an insight to the side choir and its green, yellow, purple light wall. the roof is made up of triangles leading you toward the altar, as if they were leading signs towards god.
and one last picture of the altar space, and probably my favourite photo.
i didn't take a lot of outdoor photos of the church this time ( you can look at it in winter in the link i provided you at the beginning of this post if you want to see more of the exterior ). but i leave you with one picture of the bell tower. i hope you did enjoy a little insight into this unbelievably amazing church building, remarkable in design and execution. i, for my part, was absolutely mesmerized and really happy to finally be able to see the interiors of the church i often wondered about while passing by on the way to work. and to explore it together with the dude made this place even more memorable for all time to come. and i don't say that in a melancholic way this time. this was and is truly a place of enjoyment for me.
watch and pray. or whatever you like to do in quiet and serene moments ;)
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