St. Bonifatius (Cologne-Nippes)

The first sod was turned on 2 September 1912, and the church rose to designs by Adolf Nöcker, who had already built the neighbouring parish house in 1905. Construction cost 300,000 Reichsmark, and the finished building was attached to the right of the parish house, blending into the row of houses along Gneisenaustraße. The structure came through both World Wars largely undamaged. A notable moment came in 1946: after Josef Frings was elevated to cardinal in Rome on 18 February, he celebrated his first Mass as cardinal not in the war-damaged cathedral but here in St. Bonifatius. His coat of arms in the high choir, opposite the sacristy door, still recalls the occasion.

Alongside its Romanesque character, the interior carries playful Art Nouveau forms — the feature that makes St. Bonifatius regarded as Cologne's only Art Nouveau church. The high altar, reached by nine steps, is framed by six life-sized apostle figures and displays a golden mosaic of God the Father blessing and holding the globe; its structure of embossed gold plates follows a design by Fritz Zehgruber, who also worked on the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral. The side aisles hold the Marian altar "of Perpetual Help" and the Boniface altar with a nearly life-sized figure of the church's patron saint; all altars feature coloured marble elements. A triumphal cross in the transept shows Christ wearing a royal crown, and the baptistery contains a richly decorated octagonal font resting on eight black marble columns. Five Art Nouveau confessionals are spread across both sides, and the Stations of the Cross in the memorial chapel are the work of the Dutch artist Wijnand Geraerdt.

All windows are leaded glass with black-lot painting on antique glass. In the side aisles, six windows recount the first six days of Creation, made around 1950 by an unknown artist. The Jacob Melchior firm created the windows in the chapel and transept between 1952 and 1954, including depictions of Saints Peter and Paul as well as symbols of fish, sun, moon and stars. In the clerestory, alongside ornamental compositions, two windows carry the texts GEGRÜSSET SEIST DU VOLL DER GNADE and DER MEISTER IST DA ER RUFT DICH.