St. Mary's as... an open space in the midst of the city

By Carolin Lahode und Sascha Bauer (German registered association Stadtlücken e.V.)

© Stadtlücken e.V.

"We have the church - do you have ideas?" This question was the starting point for the open participatory process at the St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Stuttgart in May 2017. Visitors, citizens and parishioners were invited to develop ideas about what the church could be besides a consecrated place of worship. 

In the context of St. Mary's Church, many changes have taken place in recent years. Due to a change of urban space the forecourt and the immediate surroundings of the church have become very frequented places which are used in very different ways. Already at the beginning of the participatory process, a mobility school was attached to the church which led to more activity in the outdoor space. Many people pass the church every day. 

But also the interior has experienced numerous changes over the past decades since the destruction during the war and the rebuilding of the roof in the 1950s. When the plaster gradually began to crumble from the ceiling onto the pews in the decade of the 2010s, the renovation of the church had to be tackled. Thus the rigid, wooden pews were removed and the resulting spaciousness allowed new visions and ideas for the interior design. The church had long since become too large for the congregation, and for quite some time considerations had been made about what alternative uses could further fill the church space. So the idea was obvious to start the relevant renovation process. The church thus became a space that could be used temporarily for a variety of purposes.

St. Mary’s is the largest Catholic church in Stuttgart, located right in the centre on the border of the two city districts of Stuttgart Süd and Mitte. Tübinger Straße runs past it, marking an important axis of development as a newly introduced bicycle lane and connecting two important points - the city centre and Marienplatz. As is the case almost everywhere in Stuttgart, free spaces are scarce, especially in the city centre. Commercialisation and privatisation are also shaping the few open spaces in the city centre. Therefore, the question of how the church space of the Marienkirche could open up and become more part of the urban space again as a space for meeting and physical activity became all the more important.

Thus a playful and low-threshold approach was chosen which allowed the city's population to actively participate in the open participatory process of the church. First, all the doors around the church were opened as an inviting gesture for curious pedestrians. A large banner with the words "St. Mary as…" was thus dropped down the front of the church and indicated: There is something different here. With the help of oversized letters on wooden sticks that could be attached and were positioned on the forecourt of the church, this lettering could be completed with an idea from pedestrians and other interested people. Finally, inside the church, large white balls rolled across the temporary wooden floor. On the side walls, a small exhibition showed impetus for the church from idea providers which could be placed on the outline of St. Mary’s church in poster form. Different toolboxes showed alternative uses and space visions for the church. People could sit on triangular stools at the round wooden table in the middle of the room, discuss, paint posters and cards and thus contribute their own ideas. The exhibition and open ideas workshop were accompanied by a two-week event programme, so various alternative uses could be tested directly in the church space. 

It was the team of the registered association Stadtlücken e.V. who designed an open participation process with all the necessary ingredients for an active participation, such as providing the concept for the exhibition, the actual participation process, small art actions in front of the church, space-defining high exhibition walls, a flexible twelve-section round table, St. Mary's stools, an Internet, Facebook and Instagram presence and, above all, a concise but unobtrusive communication design. 

Each additional element has been worked out in a well-considered and precise way. The individual segments of the table, for example, allowed a flexible use in the room for different events. However, in the evenings, couples swayed in tango rhythm through the vastness of the church interior, electronic sounds made the room vibrate, light installations played atmospheric patterns on the walls and people chatted while eating together at the long table. One afternoon, in cooperation with a local sports club, a youth team even gave a guest performance in a trampoline competition and thus temporarily conquered the third dimension of the room. 

The performances allowed the familiar church space to be experienced in a completely new way. Because the doors were open, interested people who would otherwise have been deterred by the closed nature of the interior dared to enter. In addition, the new atmosphere allowed the parishioners to discover their church and the changing church space in a new way. 

The open concept in the course of both opening the church and implementing a serious and active participatory process encouraged all people involved to further develop this unique city centre church. The positive response to the diverse events in the trial phase led to a continuation of this special atmosphere and the communal flexible use of the space in symbiosis with a consecrated church space. 

And so St. Mary's continues to be seen as... a theatre, a weather protection site, a café, an installation, an attraction, a meeting room, a workshop location, a club, a vantage point, a marketplace, a platform, space, a hall, a place of memory, a meeting place, a space for physical activity, and much more...