Heilig Geist (Köln-Weiden)

The church belongs to the parish of St. Marien, now St. Franziskus. The commission given to the Rotterdam office combined the spatial requirements set out by the Second Vatican Council with the aim of responding to modern sensibilities without resorting to experimental forms. Following the purchase of the site and initial planning in 1965, construction began. The building was already in use from May 1970, and it was consecrated by auxiliary bishop Augustinus Frotz on 17 September 1972. The surrounding parish centre was completed by 1977. Wikipedia credits both Bernhard and Bernd Rotterdam as architects, though verified structural records name only Bernhard Rotterdam.

The closed, polygonal brick building admits light through only one window at the eaves and the ribbon window running around its entire perimeter, capped by a crown-like lead cladding at the roofline. The roof first slopes down to the building's widest point, then rises again to reach its highest point above the narrow, projecting choir. On the portal side, the staircase leading to the organ loft juts out, marked by two small windows. The tall tower, built on a rectangular plan, is constructed in brick and divided into storeys by horizontal concrete bands; a two-storey cylindrical stairwell nestles against it. Its top forms a shallow notch that transitions on all four sides into vertical slit openings spanning three storeys.

Behind the entrance portal with its concrete relief lies a vestibule, above which the organ loft rests on four slender columns. From here one reaches the baptismal area in a low weekday chapel—a single-storey annex with a round skylight—as well as the Marienkapelle inside the tower. The floor dips toward the choir, emphasising the raised altar niche. Four concrete columns, not structurally necessary, divide the space around the congregation—working against the intent of gathering the congregation around the altar. Light-coloured tuff stone and a rising, wood-clad ceiling define the space; at the rear wall of the altar, the ribbon window widens into a downward-pointing tip.

Sculptor Sepp Hürten created the grey marble altar table, tabernacle, ambo and priest's benches, as well as the weathervane and the concrete relief above the portal. A baroque Madonna stands opposite the tabernacle, and the baptismal font by Gerhard Biermann dates from 1983. The leaded windows in antique and opal glass were designed by Ludwig Schaffrath in the 1990s; his abstract composition culminates in the suggestion of an eye. Three small square panes of unknown origin in the Marienkapelle are the exception. The two-manual organ with 27 stops, built in 1981, comes from the Romanus Seifert workshop, with its case designed by the architect. The four-bell bronze ring by the Mabilon foundry was installed in 1974, with strike tones d1–f1–g1–b1.