OASE 45–46, Christoph Grafe, Barren truth - Physical experience and essence in the work of Rudolf Schwarz
Christoph Grafe | OASE 45–46, p.3~27, excerpt only English text
[LINK https://www.oasejournal.nl/en/Issues/4546/BarrenTruth#002]
Barren truth
Physical experience and essence in the work of Rudolf Schwarz
Rudolf Schwarz was born in Strasbourg which before World War I was part of the German Empire. During the war Schwarz went to Berlin to study architecture. After completing his studies Schwarz found himself unemployed. He retreated to Burg Rothenfels on the Main for six months. The early medieval castle was owned by Quickborn, a Catholic youth movement. The leading force in this movement was the theologian and philosopher Romano Guardini whose writings also exerted a great influence on Mies van der Rohe.(1) Around the Schildgenossen, the Quickborn journal, a close community was being formed in the twenties which was reminiscent of an academy. Here, theologians, writers and artists met regularly to exchange ideas about social and religious reforms. Since his first stay at Rothenfels Schwarz remained one of the editors of the journal to which he also contributed articles. As an architect, he held a special position in this circle of Catholic intellectuals from the beginning. Guardini himself was very interested in the possibilities of technological progress, and regarded Schwarz as an important discussion partner who, although discerning the problems of modern technology and the trend of alienation in industrial society, was not set against them in advance. The relationship with Guardini and the discussions at Rothenfels left an indelible mark on Schwarz. Later descriptions of this period in Kirchenbau bear out the impression that the intense experience in the old building on the river Main were an initiation for Schwarz' architectural and social thinking.
[LINK https://www.oasejournal.nl/en/Issues/4546/BarrenTruth#002]
Barren truth
Physical experience and essence in the work of Rudolf Schwarz
The first photograph of a work by Rudolf Schwarz I ever saw was included in a book with the ominous title Kirchenbau (church building). As I was leafing through this book on a Sunday afternoon, I was immediately struck by a both fascinating and surprising picture: a completely bare white hall, apparently in an old building, with rough stone floors and large windows in deep reveals. In this room there are three rows of black, matte, wooden cubes arranged in a horseshoe, in a way I associated at once with a sculpture which might be found in a museum for contemporary art. The clear lines formed by the stools are echoed by three series of fluorescent tubes fixed to the ceiling. The whole possessed a singular serenity and conveyed a formal precision devoid of any superfluous gesture. The white hall was not an exhibition room but a kind of chapel; a room for the meetings of a catholic reform movement. It was designed by Rudolf Schwarz in the nineteen-twenties. In most books on the history of architecture the name of Rudolf Schwarz (1897-1961) will only appear in a footnote. He is often mentioned in the context of the oeuvre of Mies van der Rohe, who repeatedly put forward Schwarz as one of the people who had been instrumental in forming his architectural thinking.
Schwarz was never a member of any of the 'official' groups of the prewar moderns, despite the fact that his work shows clear similarities to that of his radical contemporaries. Neither was he ever attached to any of the institutions of the 'avantgarde', and this probably accounts for his relative obscurity outside Germany; an obscurity which contrasts sharply with Schwarz' enormous productivity, which resulted in an awe-inspiring oeuvre both as an architect and as a writer. Schwarz perhaps also owes his unique position to the fact that during his career he primarily presented himself as an architect designing buildings for an institution which was met with no more than mild boredom by many fellow architects and architectural critics. From 1926 until the time of his death Schwarz designed some seventy Catholic churches. The majority of these were created towards the end of his life, in the years of conservative reconstruction under the Catholic chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. His most remarkable designs, however, such as the chapel for the Catholic reform movement, Schwarz made at the beginning of his career, while his postwar work is heterogenous in its architectural expression.
Schwarz gained a reputation not only as a designer but also as a critical commentator of the architecture of the Bauhaus period and post-war reconstruction. He was a modern architect who, partly inspired by his Catholic background, and partly by a more broadly motivated critical attitude towards the levelling and alienating tendencies in industrial mass society, reached conclusions which, at the close of the twentieth century, are highly topical. These owe their topicality to their passion to describe as accurately as possible the relationship between physical form in architecture, architectural meaning and perception of space, invariably in search of an architecture which - stripped to its essence - is indisputably present.
Rudolf Schwarz was born in Strasbourg which before World War I was part of the German Empire. During the war Schwarz went to Berlin to study architecture. After completing his studies Schwarz found himself unemployed. He retreated to Burg Rothenfels on the Main for six months. The early medieval castle was owned by Quickborn, a Catholic youth movement. The leading force in this movement was the theologian and philosopher Romano Guardini whose writings also exerted a great influence on Mies van der Rohe.(1) Around the Schildgenossen, the Quickborn journal, a close community was being formed in the twenties which was reminiscent of an academy. Here, theologians, writers and artists met regularly to exchange ideas about social and religious reforms. Since his first stay at Rothenfels Schwarz remained one of the editors of the journal to which he also contributed articles. As an architect, he held a special position in this circle of Catholic intellectuals from the beginning. Guardini himself was very interested in the possibilities of technological progress, and regarded Schwarz as an important discussion partner who, although discerning the problems of modern technology and the trend of alienation in industrial society, was not set against them in advance. The relationship with Guardini and the discussions at Rothenfels left an indelible mark on Schwarz. Later descriptions of this period in Kirchenbau bear out the impression that the intense experience in the old building on the river Main were an initiation for Schwarz' architectural and social thinking.
In the early thirties
he tried to repeat the Rothenfels
experience and to turn it to advantage for
the development of a new architecture.
Shortly before the National Socialists
assumed power, he tried to bring
together leading architects, including
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Martin
Wagner, in a so-called Werkhütte, which
was inspired by the Quickborn circle.
During this period Schwarz already
seems to have been preoccupied with
the timeless aspect of building.
Architecture, according to Schwarz, follows naturally from the Creation and is part of it. Although its forms are typical of the human contribution, they are also related to the forms produced by nature. 'I recognised that forms have an eternal significance; the sphere was the form of all things that want to be alone in themselves: the single-celled organisms, the droplets, the stars... The restless things, however, are fleeing in narrow, rigid forms, in branches, in streams and ways...' In Schwarz' case, however, this notion of the origin of architectural form did not lead to the organic idiom which was followed widely in Germany in the early twenties. According to Schwarz the harmony typical of the forms of nature cannot be imitated. Therefore an order of his own has to be created, the key to which is the Gestalt of the building. In designing buildings for religious gatherings Schwarz saw a domain in which architecture was able to return to its own source, 'to become entirely itself'.(2) How this was to be translated into real buildings was still an insurmountable problem to the young architect. He was too much preoccupied with images of Utopian rooms. In Kirchenbau, for instance, Schwarz referred to an early design for a glass church with vaults onto which films could be projected so as to underpin the effect of the liturgical ritual.
A t Rothenfels Schwarz worked on his first designs that were to be realised. The first project he mentions himself is not a building, but a gold chalice. Schwarz felt that its simple and lucid form made the significance of the object visible and tangible to the gathered congregation. 'In a sense this cup was my first church', Schwarz wrote in retrospect. Some years later, in 1928, Schwarz actually made the designs for the chapel described above and the communal rooms of the castle. He had the baroque additions which impaired the purity of the room removed, to reveal the volumetric proportions of the room and the rhythm of the windows. The walls and the ceiling are whitewashed, in order to heighten this effect. The dark wooden stools can be placed freely in the room. Schwarz made some rough drafts of interior design alternatives in order to show how the congregation could use the room as it wished. In his description of the design he refers to the chosen poverty which dominated daily life at Rothenfels. By its displayed asceticism, the design of the rooms in which the community gathered for lectures, festivals and ceremonies reflected this mode of life. At the same time, this project shows the direction which the architectural thinking of the now 32-year-old architect had taken since his student days.
Fronleichnamskirche (Corpus Christi)
After spending a short period at a technical school near Frankfurt, Rudolf Schwarz was appointed director of the Aachen Kunstgewerbeschule (College for Applied Art). Here he tried to realise the integration of the theoretical and practical aspects of construction which had been lacking in his own education. In his view, the college was a regional Werkhütte, an institution with a responsibility towards the inhabitants of the town and its surroundings. The students were therefore to be given a chance to work at concrete projects for Aachen. The field of activity of this laboratory was to comprise the total scope from interiors to regional planning. In practice, however, the emphasis was - according to Schwarz' own words unintentionally - on designing sacral rooms and objects. At Aachen Schwarz also realised his best-known building in the years following 1928. The St. Fronleichnamskirche was a new church for the order of the Oratorians, a fellowship of priests who ran a parish, but, at the same time, pursued a monastic way of life. The oratories themselves were meant as spiritual centres, functioning both as parish churches and offering the possibility of contemplative prayer. The church is situated at the edge of a nineteenth-century working-class district of Aachen. The high white volume of the nave and the freestanding tower show a strong presence. The church, the tower and the presbytery situated at one side are all finished in smooth white stucco, which both enhances the volumes and which make the church contrast sharply with the grey tenement blocks in its surroundings. This impact is further reinforced by the fact that the wall surfaces are virtually closed. A series of square windows in the upper part of the facades of the nave is the main feature of these. As the windows are set on the outer face of the wall, the walls are not broken and the volume unimpaired.
The church has two entrances, a ceremonial door on the main axis and a lower, double door into the single low aisle on the south side which links the nave with the campanile. Both doors are made of steel and, originally, had a copper paneling.
A t Rothenfels Schwarz worked on his first designs that were to be realised. The first project he mentions himself is not a building, but a gold chalice. Schwarz felt that its simple and lucid form made the significance of the object visible and tangible to the gathered congregation. 'In a sense this cup was my first church', Schwarz wrote in retrospect. Some years later, in 1928, Schwarz actually made the designs for the chapel described above and the communal rooms of the castle. He had the baroque additions which impaired the purity of the room removed, to reveal the volumetric proportions of the room and the rhythm of the windows. The walls and the ceiling are whitewashed, in order to heighten this effect. The dark wooden stools can be placed freely in the room. Schwarz made some rough drafts of interior design alternatives in order to show how the congregation could use the room as it wished. In his description of the design he refers to the chosen poverty which dominated daily life at Rothenfels. By its displayed asceticism, the design of the rooms in which the community gathered for lectures, festivals and ceremonies reflected this mode of life. At the same time, this project shows the direction which the architectural thinking of the now 32-year-old architect had taken since his student days.
Fronleichnamskirche (Corpus Christi)
After spending a short period at a technical school near Frankfurt, Rudolf Schwarz was appointed director of the Aachen Kunstgewerbeschule (College for Applied Art). Here he tried to realise the integration of the theoretical and practical aspects of construction which had been lacking in his own education. In his view, the college was a regional Werkhütte, an institution with a responsibility towards the inhabitants of the town and its surroundings. The students were therefore to be given a chance to work at concrete projects for Aachen. The field of activity of this laboratory was to comprise the total scope from interiors to regional planning. In practice, however, the emphasis was - according to Schwarz' own words unintentionally - on designing sacral rooms and objects. At Aachen Schwarz also realised his best-known building in the years following 1928. The St. Fronleichnamskirche was a new church for the order of the Oratorians, a fellowship of priests who ran a parish, but, at the same time, pursued a monastic way of life. The oratories themselves were meant as spiritual centres, functioning both as parish churches and offering the possibility of contemplative prayer. The church is situated at the edge of a nineteenth-century working-class district of Aachen. The high white volume of the nave and the freestanding tower show a strong presence. The church, the tower and the presbytery situated at one side are all finished in smooth white stucco, which both enhances the volumes and which make the church contrast sharply with the grey tenement blocks in its surroundings. This impact is further reinforced by the fact that the wall surfaces are virtually closed. A series of square windows in the upper part of the facades of the nave is the main feature of these. As the windows are set on the outer face of the wall, the walls are not broken and the volume unimpaired.
The church has two entrances, a ceremonial door on the main axis and a lower, double door into the single low aisle on the south side which links the nave with the campanile. Both doors are made of steel and, originally, had a copper paneling.
From the door to the aisle the visitor enters the twilight of the entrance hall, which is separated from the aisle by a large glass panel. Virginal white stucco emphasises the contrast between the nave, 19 metres high, and the low aisle which is a mere 3.5 metres high. The windowless aisle faces the nave like a large, low niche opening towards the taller, lighter space.
With the square windows set very close to the ceiling, light pours into the nave form everywhere. As a result, the nave is filled with an indefinable haze which makes one a little dizzy. Towards the altar the intensity of the light increases. Here the square windows form two vertical series meeting the horizontal band at the ceiling. The dark marble floor folds in a shallow flight of stairs across the whole width of the nave running towards the altar.(3) The marble block of the altar itself seems to grow from a geometrical landscape, providing a slight elevation towards the point of utmost intensity: the thirty-centimeter high crucifix standing on a humble wooden box at the centre of the altar. Otherwise the church is devoid of any images. Only the room itself and the surfaces surrounding it speak; the earthly, nearly black marble with its fine white pattern of veins which make lines like a landscape on a map; the smooth wall surfaces and the ceiling which, separated by a thin black line from the load-bearing walls, seems to float. The natural irregular pattern of the veins in the floor contrasts with the rigid pattern in which long columns of light fittings hang from the ceiling like a serial sculpture. This fundamental rule of treating the surfaces is only once deviated from. At the points where a constructive element is necessary to support the side wall of the nave, while the design does not tolerate any columns between the nave and the aisle, Schwarz finds pretext for an architectural detail of great beauty. A wall that can also be a column - and vice versa - and that distinguishes itself from the wall surface above by the black of its marble covering forms the backdrop for the cantilevered cubic pulpit.
With the square windows set very close to the ceiling, light pours into the nave form everywhere. As a result, the nave is filled with an indefinable haze which makes one a little dizzy. Towards the altar the intensity of the light increases. Here the square windows form two vertical series meeting the horizontal band at the ceiling. The dark marble floor folds in a shallow flight of stairs across the whole width of the nave running towards the altar.(3) The marble block of the altar itself seems to grow from a geometrical landscape, providing a slight elevation towards the point of utmost intensity: the thirty-centimeter high crucifix standing on a humble wooden box at the centre of the altar. Otherwise the church is devoid of any images. Only the room itself and the surfaces surrounding it speak; the earthly, nearly black marble with its fine white pattern of veins which make lines like a landscape on a map; the smooth wall surfaces and the ceiling which, separated by a thin black line from the load-bearing walls, seems to float. The natural irregular pattern of the veins in the floor contrasts with the rigid pattern in which long columns of light fittings hang from the ceiling like a serial sculpture. This fundamental rule of treating the surfaces is only once deviated from. At the points where a constructive element is necessary to support the side wall of the nave, while the design does not tolerate any columns between the nave and the aisle, Schwarz finds pretext for an architectural detail of great beauty. A wall that can also be a column - and vice versa - and that distinguishes itself from the wall surface above by the black of its marble covering forms the backdrop for the cantilevered cubic pulpit.
Almost as soon as the church had been completed, its design provoked a fierce discussion. The critics, largely from catholic ranks, accused Schwarz of having turned a church into a factory. They maintained that his refusal to follow the tradition of decorating the church and of observing the traditional types of churches had resulted in a large empty shell. In an article in Die Schiidgenossen Schwarz defended his design and was seconded by Guardini in the same issue. Both emphasise the effect of the white surfaces which they do not conceive as something abstract but which, by their contemporary materiality and the way in which they reflect or absorb the light, enter into a dialogue with the congregation. The plain surface behind the altar may be interpreted as a projection screen, not for slides but for the thoughts formulated by the individual visitor and the congregation in contemplative prayer. Guardini writes on this: 'The white rectangle and the "empty" space have a great creative power. Whatever is inside and whatever comes inside receives a particular grandeur and density of existence.'(4)
Schwarz the theorist
Schwarz the theorist
The second half of the 1920's was a productive period for Schwarz. Not only are the designs and realised buildings proof of this; he also published a great number of texts. In 1929 he wrote the essay Wegweisung der Technik, one of his best-known texts and the one that had a particular impact on Mies van der Rohe.(5) Here, Schwarz formulates an attitude towards the possibilities of technical inventions and innovations which differs sharply from the uncritical faith in progress common among the modern architects of his time. He does not reject technology but embraces the new possibilities with enthusiasm. He feels that the developments resulting from technological innovations need some control, linking them to a historically rooted and philosophically motivated significance. Schwarz offers an analysis of the trend of alienation ensuing from modern science and modern production methods. According to Schwarz scientific knowledge is too exclusively focused on the control of the material world. The question for truth - and, in consequence, the value of progress - has never been asked or has been asked much too late. Scientific knowledge ought to be accompanied by 'older' forms of human knowledge; not only do these include cultural or religious knowledge, but also that acquired through the senses. Science, technology and industrial progress are, according to Schwarz, perverted, and have deteriorated into systems of oppression. Only in the full awareness of the new technical possibilities can the architect look for an 'underlying' order which gives meaning to individual and collective activities.
In this respect, Schwarz' ideas are strongly influenced by the thinking and terminology of Romano Guardini who, some years before, in 1926, in his Briefe vom Comer See, had painted a picture of a modern society which was entirely in the grip of an abstract and chaotic field of influence devoid of any central meaning. Neither Schwarz nor Guardini are, however, looking for a solution by restoring old values or forms. Guardini says in this context: 'Whatever is not entirely authentic, in itself and in our souls, is doomed to fail. That is how it is. Perhaps we are simply on the verge of a more essential reality.'(6) Schwarz argues in a similar way, when, as regards building, he explicitly states that a particular period can only bring forth one architectural idiom, and that this idiom must reflect the technical possibilities of the moment. This excludes both any nostalgic reversion to the formal conventions of a past era, and an unambigously functionalistic approach ignoring the essential 'deeper' significance of a building.
In his book Vom Bau der Kirche from 1938, ten years after Wegweisung, Schwarz pursues the question of what this essence of architecture could be. In addition, the book is a sum of the experience of designing liturgical spaces, such as the Fronleichnamskirche and the chapel at Rothenfels.
Schwarz' argument is consistent with the argumentation he had set out in Wegweisung. If the form of a building is not given by tradition or a functional scheme, it is the architect's prime task to look for the significance of the building. To him the church is the architectural task in its ultimate essence. In a church the technique of construction meets a primal form of a human collective. In church construction the problems of architecture arise in their purest form. 'The art of building, as we meant it is not merely a walled shelter, but everything together: building and people, body and soul, the human beings and Christ, a whole spiritual universe - a universe, indeed which must ever be brought into
reality anew. We meant the primal deed of building, the process in which church becomes living form.'(7) Although Schwarz sees an inspiring translation of this fact in the medieval churches and cathedrals, he feels that the technical principles have now changed so much that there is no way back. The meaning of architectural concepts has shifted too much. 'For us the wall is no longer heavy masonry but rather a taut membrane, we know the great tensile strength of steel and with it we have conquered the vault. For us the building materials are something different from what they were to the old masters. We know their inner structure, the positions of their atoms, the course of their inner tensions. And we build in the knowledge of all this - it is irrevocable. The old, heavy forms would turn into theatrical trappings in our hands and the people would see that they were an empty wrapping.' (8)
Against this background Schwarz formulates an archetypology of spatial forms. In part, these archetypes refer directly to the geometry of surfaces and bodies. Thus, the ring symbolises an introvert congregation sunk in prayer, while the open ring expresses a congregation ready to depart to a new future. Other archetypal forms are the way, the chalice of light, the 'dark' (infinite) hollow chalice, the dome of light (the universe) and the cathedral of all times which, in turn, expresses a divine entity. In Schwarz' work architectural forms are determined by geometrical rules. However, these rules are explicitly, not purely mathematically defined.(9) Geometric form is corrected by observation and perception of space. The visual and auditory perspectives and the physical perception of the qualities of material are put forward by Schwarz as factors that have to be considered in the actual spatial form. Gravitation and the dense mass forming the material are also factors in the perception and the process of realising a design.
A space is experienced through the whole body, the senses and the intellect. 'Indeed it is with the body that we experience building, with outstretched arms and the pacing feet, with the rowing glance and with the ear, and above else in breathing. Space is dancingly experienced.'(10) 'The farthest fingertip softly touches a thing, the gentlest power of communication flows out to it and slowly, softly it reveals itself.'(11)
The building is part of the same material world as the human body, it is a 'second' body. Originated through human movement, it is both solidified energy and a skin coming into contact with the 'dancing body'.
In his book Vom Bau der Kirche from 1938, ten years after Wegweisung, Schwarz pursues the question of what this essence of architecture could be. In addition, the book is a sum of the experience of designing liturgical spaces, such as the Fronleichnamskirche and the chapel at Rothenfels.
Schwarz' argument is consistent with the argumentation he had set out in Wegweisung. If the form of a building is not given by tradition or a functional scheme, it is the architect's prime task to look for the significance of the building. To him the church is the architectural task in its ultimate essence. In a church the technique of construction meets a primal form of a human collective. In church construction the problems of architecture arise in their purest form. 'The art of building, as we meant it is not merely a walled shelter, but everything together: building and people, body and soul, the human beings and Christ, a whole spiritual universe - a universe, indeed which must ever be brought into
reality anew. We meant the primal deed of building, the process in which church becomes living form.'(7) Although Schwarz sees an inspiring translation of this fact in the medieval churches and cathedrals, he feels that the technical principles have now changed so much that there is no way back. The meaning of architectural concepts has shifted too much. 'For us the wall is no longer heavy masonry but rather a taut membrane, we know the great tensile strength of steel and with it we have conquered the vault. For us the building materials are something different from what they were to the old masters. We know their inner structure, the positions of their atoms, the course of their inner tensions. And we build in the knowledge of all this - it is irrevocable. The old, heavy forms would turn into theatrical trappings in our hands and the people would see that they were an empty wrapping.' (8)
Against this background Schwarz formulates an archetypology of spatial forms. In part, these archetypes refer directly to the geometry of surfaces and bodies. Thus, the ring symbolises an introvert congregation sunk in prayer, while the open ring expresses a congregation ready to depart to a new future. Other archetypal forms are the way, the chalice of light, the 'dark' (infinite) hollow chalice, the dome of light (the universe) and the cathedral of all times which, in turn, expresses a divine entity. In Schwarz' work architectural forms are determined by geometrical rules. However, these rules are explicitly, not purely mathematically defined.(9) Geometric form is corrected by observation and perception of space. The visual and auditory perspectives and the physical perception of the qualities of material are put forward by Schwarz as factors that have to be considered in the actual spatial form. Gravitation and the dense mass forming the material are also factors in the perception and the process of realising a design.
A space is experienced through the whole body, the senses and the intellect. 'Indeed it is with the body that we experience building, with outstretched arms and the pacing feet, with the rowing glance and with the ear, and above else in breathing. Space is dancingly experienced.'(10) 'The farthest fingertip softly touches a thing, the gentlest power of communication flows out to it and slowly, softly it reveals itself.'(11)
The building is part of the same material world as the human body, it is a 'second' body. Originated through human movement, it is both solidified energy and a skin coming into contact with the 'dancing body'.
Schwarz thus formulates a definition of architecture which turns out to be extremely topical against the background of the current debate on the materiality of architecture by which it distinguishes itself from the predominating culture of fast moving images. Among his contemporaries he was rather alone in his explicit and poetically phrased stance on the materiality of architecture. As it was, the whole subject of materiality was so charged that the prewar moderns - with some exceptions, like Mies van der Rohe or Loos - would rather not be invloved.(12) Against this background Schwarz' observations become even more remarkable.
World War II and Post War Reconstruction
The rise of the National Socialists marked the start of a difficult period for Schwarz. Not only was the college at Aachen closed, the construction of churches too gradually ground to a halt. Schwarz is known to have said that he considered emigrating from Germany but was deterred from doing so by the idea of wandering through the world as a refugee. True enough, it is difficult to picture him as a exile in New York or California, like Mies or Mendelssohn. For some years he ran a small practice in Frankfurt. Then the new authorities put him in charge of the regional planning and Germanisation of occupied AlsaceLorraine. The arrival of the allies put a premature end to the whole plan and in 1945 Schwarz found himself in a US army camp. During his detention he was able to order his ideas on regional planning and, subsequently, to publish them under the title Von der Bebauung der Erde. The vision of society he sketches finds its translation in a hierarchic order of landscapes with central cities in which the identity of a landscape is being 'condensed'. This fitted in well with the Zeitgeist of the young West German republic, in which a corporatist-Catholic establishment, led by the Rhinelander Adenauer, had begun to restore an old order while the Cold War was at its height. Schwarz was not alone in his preoccupation with the identity of a geographical place, as can be seen from the records of the 1951 Darmstadter Gesprache in which he was asked to participate.
After the war Schwarz worked as Generalplaner supervising the reconstruction of Cologne, a heavily destroyed city. In addition to these activities he designed dozens of churches. The majority of the designs were realised and although the concepts of space are based on his prewar studies - and primarily on the types developed in Vom Bau der Kirche - their execution shows a great variety in material and idiom.
A few designs reflect the purity and economy of means typical of the Fronleichnamskirche, even if they are less dogmatic - or less principled - than his early work. This is true, for example, of the St. Michaelskirche in Frankfurt, an extremely sober church without a tower, with an oval floor plan from which two apses protrude. Other examples include the churches in Oberhausen and Essen where the theme of the transparent membrane is worked out in an intriguing and very intricate manner.
World War II and Post War Reconstruction
The rise of the National Socialists marked the start of a difficult period for Schwarz. Not only was the college at Aachen closed, the construction of churches too gradually ground to a halt. Schwarz is known to have said that he considered emigrating from Germany but was deterred from doing so by the idea of wandering through the world as a refugee. True enough, it is difficult to picture him as a exile in New York or California, like Mies or Mendelssohn. For some years he ran a small practice in Frankfurt. Then the new authorities put him in charge of the regional planning and Germanisation of occupied AlsaceLorraine. The arrival of the allies put a premature end to the whole plan and in 1945 Schwarz found himself in a US army camp. During his detention he was able to order his ideas on regional planning and, subsequently, to publish them under the title Von der Bebauung der Erde. The vision of society he sketches finds its translation in a hierarchic order of landscapes with central cities in which the identity of a landscape is being 'condensed'. This fitted in well with the Zeitgeist of the young West German republic, in which a corporatist-Catholic establishment, led by the Rhinelander Adenauer, had begun to restore an old order while the Cold War was at its height. Schwarz was not alone in his preoccupation with the identity of a geographical place, as can be seen from the records of the 1951 Darmstadter Gesprache in which he was asked to participate.
After the war Schwarz worked as Generalplaner supervising the reconstruction of Cologne, a heavily destroyed city. In addition to these activities he designed dozens of churches. The majority of the designs were realised and although the concepts of space are based on his prewar studies - and primarily on the types developed in Vom Bau der Kirche - their execution shows a great variety in material and idiom.
A few designs reflect the purity and economy of means typical of the Fronleichnamskirche, even if they are less dogmatic - or less principled - than his early work. This is true, for example, of the St. Michaelskirche in Frankfurt, an extremely sober church without a tower, with an oval floor plan from which two apses protrude. Other examples include the churches in Oberhausen and Essen where the theme of the transparent membrane is worked out in an intriguing and very intricate manner.
A particularly poignant building from the postwar period in the oeuvre of Rudolf Schwarz can be found in the small town of Düren, halfway between Aachen and Cologne. Today Düren lies at the edge of a landscape totally ruined by long-term extraction of brown coal. The town was heavily bombed during the war. The St. Annakirche, which Schwarz codesigned with his wife, Maria Schwarz, and which was built in the early fifties, stands like a strange earthly stone block in the town centre. From the rubble of an older church, destroyed during the war, Schwarz had a high volume built. By a slight rotation of the angle with respect to the main directions in the city plan this volume withdraws from its surroundings while, at the same time, controlling it completely. The church has a high main nave which winds round the low aisle in the shape of an L - an organization that is roughly comparable with that applied in Fronleichnam, although the proportion between the two spaces seems to be virtually reversed. The aisle is filled with soft, filtered light which purs in through cupolas made of small, round glass stones, forming a row of patches on the floor. It seems subordinate to the nave while, at the same time, it is the secret centre of the church. In the main nave a mass of light is flooding in through high windows at the inside of the L, emphasising the rough surface of the outer wall. As in the Fronleichnamskirche the enclosing surfaces are literally flat, without an added layer of meaning. The richly gradated red-brown of the natural stone and the concrete visible in the ceiling bestow a completely different atmosphere on this church, however, which can hardly be captured in a black-and-white photograph.(13)
Both churches possess a great atmospheric density. This is attributable to an economy of means which, in its craving for the essential, rejects any redundant gesture. Their apparent asceticism and poverty produce an spatial experience of great intensity. Schwarz' architecture is physically present. In its simplicity it becomes primary and highly tangible, like something you do not need to touch in order to know how it feels', and, thus, what it means.
Perhaps Romano Guardini meant this when he wrote about the design of the church at Aachen: 'As far as the imagelessness of the sacral space is concerned: its emptiness is an image in itself. Rephrasing it without a paradox; formed in the right way, the emptiness of space and surface is not simply a negation of the pictorial character, but its opposite.'(14)
Translation: Sylvia Zaugg
Perhaps Romano Guardini meant this when he wrote about the design of the church at Aachen: 'As far as the imagelessness of the sacral space is concerned: its emptiness is an image in itself. Rephrasing it without a paradox; formed in the right way, the emptiness of space and surface is not simply a negation of the pictorial character, but its opposite.'(14)
Translation: Sylvia Zaugg
notes
(1) Guardini was professor of Religionsphilosophie (philosophy of religion) and katholische Weltanschauung (Catholic ideology) in Berlin. Except on Schwarz, he also exerted a great influence on the thinking of Mies van der Rohe, who refers to Guardini in his personal testimonies. In 1939 Guardini was forced to leave the university. After the war he was involved in founding the Hochschule für Gestaltung at Ulm.
(2) Rudolf Schwarz, Kirchenbau, Heidelberg, 1960, p.9.
(3) When the church was adjusted to meet the requirements of the second Vatican Council, a second, centrally positioned altar was added, which slightly impairs the view of the original altar.
(4) Die Schildgenossen, 11th volume (1931), no. 17. As a matter of fact, Guardini is more critical of the exterior of the church which, according to him, lacks the intensity of the interior and which, by its white surface, presents itself both harshly and very vulnerably as it is difficult to maintain to its surroundings.
(5) Rudolf Schwarz, Wegweisung der Technik, 1929; reprint Braunschweig 1979. Mies van der Rohe called the text 'a breaking point in my development'. The relationship between Schwarz and Mies van der Rohe was one of mutual respect. Even after Mies' emigration to the United States the bond between the two architects remained intact. Mies wrote the preface to the American translation of Schwarz' book Vom Bau der Kirche (The Church Incarnate) and later, two years after Schwarz' death in 1961, he wrote an In Memoriam on the 'thinking architect'.
(6) Guardini's philosophy is expounded clearly and succinctly in the chapter on Mies van der Rohe in: Francesco Dal Co, Figures of architecture and thought. German architecture culture 1880-1920, New York 1990, pp. 262-286.
(8) Op. cit., pp. 4-5, Am. ed. p. 9.
(9) Wolfgang Meisenheimer, Der Raum in der Architektur, Strukturen, Gestalten, Begriffe (Space in Architecture, Structures, Forms, Concepts), doctoral research at the Rheinisch WestfalischeTechnische Hochschule at Aachen, undated, pp. 150-153.
(10) Schwarz, Vom Bau der Kirche, p. 17, Am. ed. P- 27.
(11) Op. cit., p. 11, Am. ed. p. 19.
(12) Perhaps this picture would have been somewhat more balanced, if World War II had not interrupted all building activity. In Scandinavia the years subsequent to 1940 were the very years in which modern buildings were created which are noted for their distinct and varied use of material. Examples are Asplunds courthouse at Gothenburg, built in 1940, and Aalto's Villa Mairea, built in 1938-39.
(12) Perhaps this picture would have been somewhat more balanced, if World War II had not interrupted all building activity. In Scandinavia the years subsequent to 1940 were the very years in which modern buildings were created which are noted for their distinct and varied use of material. Examples are Asplunds courthouse at Gothenburg, built in 1940, and Aalto's Villa Mairea, built in 1938-39.
(13) Perhaps Schwarz took the opportunity to travel to Italy, when German citizens regained the right to travel abroad in the 1950s. Much of his postwar work is reminiscent of the use of material which, by its refinery and rich contrast, is typical of the other side of the Alps. St. Anna Church, for instance, seems curiously related to Michelucchi's Stazione Santa Maria Novella (Florence).
(14) Romano Guardini, preface to the catalogue of an exhibition of German liturgical art in Rome, 1956.
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