St. Fronleichnam (Cologne-Porz)
In Cologne's Porz district stands St. Fronleichnam, a Catholic branch church that architect Gottfried Böhm shaped between 1958 and 1960 around the idea of God's "tent among the people." The striking tent-roof building has been a listed monument since 1997.
On former farmland in Porz, a young parish emerged in the late 1950s and built its own church in just thirteen months. Here Gottfried Böhm translated a verse from the Book of Revelation into concrete, glass and slender white columns.
Source: Wikipedia
At a Glance
- Location
- Cologne-Porz
- Denomination
- Catholic branch church (active, open to visitors)
- Architect
- Gottfried Böhm
- Construction
- 1958–1960, consecrated at Pentecost 1960
- Heritage status
- listed since 22 December 1997 (monument list no. 8224)
- Guiding idea
- "God's tent among the people" (Rev 21:3)
- Organ
- 18 stops, two manuals and pedal (Oberlinger, 1995)
The historic bell from 1457 that first summoned the parish was replaced in 1966 for tonal reasons — the medieval bell now stands in the Porz district town hall.
Things to do here
- Take in the pyramid-shaped tent-roof architecture in exposed concrete, inside and out
- Discover the windows designed by Gottfried Böhm, from pale structural glass to the coloured antique-glass window in the chapel
- See furnishings such as the 18th-century carved wooden Pietà and Eva Burgeff's sacrament column
- Visit the bulging baptismal chapel with the symbolic dove of the Holy Spirit
From Makeshift Chapel to a Church of Its Own
After a parish was founded in early 1958, the community first worshipped in the Franz-Hitze-Haus and a nearby school. Ground was broken by the end of 1958, and only thirteen months passed between the laying of the foundation stone in May 1959 and the consecration at Pentecost 1960. The archdiocese had cut the tower for financial reasons, so the parish simply funded it themselves through a loan. Bells were improvised too: the mother parish of St. Bartholomäus in Urbach donated a bell from 1457 that it no longer needed.
A Building Modelled on a Tent
The design follows the notion that God dwells not in a palace but among the people, in their tents. Slender white columns rise from the rectangular plan, joined at eaves height by a cornice that carries the folded roof with its great pyramid-shaped tent peak in exposed concrete. Inside, paired column shafts mark out the square congregation space, ringed by an ambulatory of small chapel-like niches. Rows of windows make the outer wall read like a crenellated rampart, while a bulging glass niche with a pyramid roof serves as the baptismal spot.
Art and Furnishings
From the windows and the portal to the weather vane, the designs are Böhm's own. The glass is mostly very pale; only in the chapel does an abstract window of coloured antique glass glow, and the baptismal area additionally shows the dove of the Holy Spirit. The altar and the font, the latter designed by Theo Heiermann, are made of Main sandstone, and the altar cross is a gift from the Böhm family. There is also a Paschal candlestick, an 18th-century carved wooden Pietà, and the sacrament column with tabernacle by Eva Burgeff (1967).
Change in the New Millennium
After a roof repair in 1973 and a major restoration in 1984, the church was granted heritage protection in 1997. A parish merger around the turn of the millennium demoted it from parish church to branch church, and it now belongs to the St. Maximilian Kolbe community, which unites four formerly independent parishes.
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Auto-generated, last verified: 2026-08-28
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