A different world

“You will find a broad cross-section of the population here,” says Peter Thein, a project manager in the Archdiocese’s construction department, adding that “families, shared student flats, pensioners, and refugees are all represented.” Forty-three low-cost residential units have been built, along with offices, and an education and community centre for refugees maintained by the Catholic relief organisation Caritas. The square at the front on lively Kapellenstrasse, which tapers off further down the road, is a meeting place and a draw for visitors. Over to its left, there is a fairly unobtrusive but handsomely designed office and apartment building. “The new building deliberately takes a step back,” explains Regine Leipertz, who designed the project along with her partner Martin Kostulski.

After all, right across the square stands the centuries-old monastery church, which still provides worship services, among many other things. The brick Baroque Revival building from the 1920s gives something of a defiantly solemn impression from the outside, making its bright and spacious nave inside all the more surprising. And its central space is particularly remarkable: a group of chairs and tables with room for 20 people beneath an oval-shaped panel suspended from the ceiling. Curtains hang down from this panel all the way to the floor, completely enveloping the area. “They provide such great seclusion that there could be hustle and bustle all around and you would still be able to have a quiet discussion inside,” says Leipertz, the architect.

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Another major feature in the nave is the movable wall between the main section of the room and the choir area along with the altar. On this side, there are a few seats recessed into the moving wall. “This makes it possible to hold modest services in front of the altar, such as baptisms or the smallest-scale weddings,” explains project manager Peter Thein. Even when the church and its new facilities are used as a centre for people to meet and talk, it still serves as a house of God.

In the monastery’s former gatehouse, ten small apartments have been created in order to care for sick and traumatised refugees, respecting Pope Francis’ calls for “empty convents [to be] there for refugees.” The rectangular Quadrum, the nuns’ former accommodation building, houses two flat-sharing communities for young people. These are inhabited by 14- to 18-year-olds with family or mental health problems, in addition to refugees who came to Germany unaccompanied as minors. They are looked after by employees of Die Gute Hand Foundation.

The young people enjoy more spacious conditions than the nuns who came before them. While a nun usually only had one cell measuring about eight square metres, each young person is given two of these mini-rooms put together; one with a bed, the other with a desk and cupboard. As ever, the courtyard of the Quadrum is tranquil. “There used to be a fountain in the middle, though it had fallen into disuse and unfortunately did not survive the building works,” Peter Thein recalls. “But we are going to put a new one in here,” the project manager adds.