Kreuzkirche
Former Protestant church near Cologne's main station, now the Pathpoint Cologne youth hostel.
since 1913
The Kreuzkirche was a Protestant church in the northern part of Cologne's city centre that was closed in 2006 and later converted into a youth hostel. It can no longer be visited as a place of worship – but it lives on as a hostel that has kept some traces of its ecclesiastical past.
Source: Wikipedia
At a Glance
- Type
- Former Protestant church, now a youth hostel
- Built
- Constructed 1912–1913, consecrated on 1 June 1913
- Location
- Corner of Turiner Straße / Machabäerstraße, a few minutes north of the main station
- Style
- Neo-Baroque with neoclassical influences
- Architect
- Arthur Eberhard (parish master builder)
- Commissioned by
- Protestant Parish of Cologne
- Notable
- Barely recognisable as a church from outside; it never had a bell
- Today
- Pathpoint Cologne youth hostel (since 2010)
Age comparison
Age compared with other places in Cologne.
History
While Protestants in the southern Old Town had the Trinitatiskirche from 1860, the population in the northern city centre was growing rapidly, so the parish needed a further church there. In 1911 it acquired the western part of the former Machabäer barracks, which themselves stood on the grounds of a Capuchin monastery consecrated in 1616 and dissolved in 1802 under French occupation. The narrow but deep plot allowed for numerous parish rooms.
Construction began in 1912 and the church was consecrated in 1913 – initially under the name Kreuzkapelle (Chapel of the Cross). The name recalled a stone cross erected in front of the monastery in 1615, as well as a small chapel of the cross that had existed within the monastery since 1618.
War and Rebuilding
During the Second World War the church was badly damaged in air raids in 1942 and 1944, though the façade and galleries survived largely intact. As early as 1945 a makeshift service room was set up beneath the galleries. From 1950 the parish rebuilt the building behind the preserved façade in a plain, contemporary form. Its re-consecration in 1951 made the Kreuzkirche the first new Protestant church building in post-war Cologne. The following year it received a small organ by Willi Peter.
The Firewall and Rembrandt
When the neighbouring houses were destroyed, the church's western wall was left exposed as a bare firewall, while the Nord-Süd-Fahrt thoroughfare was laid out alongside it in the 1950s. The historic façade facing Machabäerstraße was listed as a monument in 1982. Following a competition in 1986/87, a group of women artists redesigned the firewall based on a detail from Rembrandt's etching "The Three Crosses" (1653); the central cross on the wall stood over five metres tall.
Closure and Current Use
In 1990 the interior was remodelled and the entrance moved back to its original position in the centre of the building; in 2001 a new organ by Wieland Rühle was added. Growing financial pressure led the parish council to decide on closure in 2005 – the final service took place on 31 December 2006. It was the second church closure in the parish's history.
Because of its convenient location just about 650 metres from the cathedral, the German Youth Hostel Association bought the property and carefully converted it into the Pathpoint Cologne youth hostel in 2009–2010 at a cost of 3.6 million euros, opening on 7 July 2010. Some features recalling its former church use were preserved in the process.
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Auto-generated, last verified: 2026-07-10
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