St. Engelbert (Cologne) A catholic community center under an expressionistic concrete shell roof

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Daniel Christoph Benjamin Buggert
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 349765866

St. Engelbert (Cologne-Riehl) is a well known example of 20th century ecclesiastical architecture. Its expressionistic shape and  the double cambered concrete shells are considered to be a great achievement by Dominikus Böhm. The church is mentioned in numerous publications, yet a monographical and comprehensive approach to the building is absent.The project will be based on a systematical evaluation of all existing documents and a survey of the building. Documents can be  found in the Böhm Archive, being part of the Historical City Archive of Cologne, as well as in the Historical Archive of the Archdiocese of Cologne and in the Parochial Archive of St. Engelbert. Especially the latter one has been entirely overlooked. A detailed survey and a precise documentation of the building is necessary, because there are no historical or modern drawings of  the executed project, neither of its current state.Combining the analysis of archival documents and methods of architectural documentation, it will be possible to develop a precise chronology of all alterations of the building. This is of particular importance as the original design scheme developed by Dominikus Böhm was not entirely executed. Especially the rooms in the basement are of varying conditions and have to be examined: Only one room was finished during the first construction phase of the 1930s, while the others remained as a shell of an unfinished building. After the addition of an air-raid shelter during World War II the original plans could not be realised and for that reason the main parts have been rendered usable only by simple design methods, while one room stayed unaltered in unfinished condition.Overall the project deals with two aspects. First, there will be a precise geometrical analysis of the double cambered concrete  shells in order to re-evaluate the importance of St. Engelbert for the history of building construction, with a special focus on  the early phase of concrete constructions. It is also intended to clarify wether the design of the church is an achievement of  engineering and structural design or the result of an adaptive application of historical design principles for vaults.The second aspect will be the analysis of the functional scheme. St. Engelbert has to be regarded as an early example of a catholic parochial center, in which all areas of community life are gathered in one building. Since many of the rooms were only partially completed, this aspect has not been considered yet. Starting with the analysis of a specific example, the typological development for the beginning of the 20th century will be examined and contextualised with contemporary catholic reform movements.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants