The minster and the former monastery buildings

Headed by:
Erwin Döring, Munich/D

Participants:
Mario Fass, Wismar/D
Leonard Koerner, Wismar/D
Jukka Laine, Tampere/FIN
Philip Denkinger, Kassel/D
Edmund Uebelacker, Dortmund/D
Ewa Schmidt, Heiligendamm/D
Hartmut Malech, Giessen/D
Stefanie Schlachter, Hildesheim/D

The task of the group working on St. Mary's Church was to address the problem of awakening the general public's awareness of the minster and its surrounding monastic buildings and their high cultural value. The students aimed to pick out the concealed constructional and idealistic treasures of the entire site as well as the painful damage the buildings have suffered over the years. The minster is seen to be the former centre of the site and is, at the same time, a clear and solid reminder of the former monastery. Through observation and discussion the group attempted to find an appropriate lighting design concept that would under-line the charm of the architecture while at the same time addressing the symbolic connection between religion and light.

This process began by discussing spontaneous impressions and thoughts in a relatively simple form, which produced a collection of ideas which partly overlapped and partly complemented each other. This, in turn, produced a puzzle pieced together from the students’ imagination and logical understanding of the architectural and spiritual evidence inherent to the site. Using this they came up with a wide range of lighting possibilities for review and, eventually, reduction.

Recognition of the changed relationship between man and the church led to the desire on the part of the group to translate these elementary ideas into an experiment: in former days life centred around the church, the people lived in and around the church, it was an integral part of their existence. Nowadays, the church is more frequently viewed from the outside, as a mighty, majestic structure. Visitors to the minster often have little or nothing to do with the ecclesiastical world. The concept behind the lighting was, therefore, to entice the viewer over the threshold and actually into the church. The light was to be designed to invite on-lookers to enter the church, i.e. to enter the world of religion. The church was to transmit a wel-coming message to the people outside.

Two further elementary components of the lighting design were addressing the architectural language of the Gothic style of the building and underlining the significance of the cloister. Characteristic of the architecture of the minster is the general feeling of awe of God and of the mystic world, together with the illuminated stained glass windows and the typical architectural features that point and surge upwards, striving to the heavens. Striving to the heavens was the first theme the group decided to work on.

The group expressed the wish to illuminate the stained glass windows from the inside. Luminaires were positioned inside the church to illuminate the stained glass and present the pictures and images on the glass to the outside world. Dark openings in the walls, dark windows and other holes in the walls were transformed. The tall Gothic windows were then filled with radiant, coloured but gentle light, a fascinating and inviting spectacle for all onlookers. Radiating light outside from inside the church is converse to the religious thinking of the past centuries. Daylight was filtered into the church from outside, casting coloured patterns onto the floor. Creating a situation with electric light that worked the other way round was tantamount to turning the church inside out. Another direct inviting gesture was to light the main door to the church, emphasising the threshold, the part where the people actually enter.

Backlighting the tall Gothic windows was also a way for the group to draw attention to this characteristic feature of Gothic architecture: the striving to the heavens.

The other main element to be lit was the cloister, which architecturally speaking comprised only a few fragments, but which was fully evident in a spiritual sense. Today it is marked by a lawn divided into four equal parts plus the remains of a wall directly in front of the main portal. As a component of the ensemble of the monastery it represented one of the seven rings of silence inherent to Cistercian monastic life and yet was used by the monks as a meeting place. The discussions as to how to best light the cloister were long and heated: ideas included underlining the form of the cross in the lawn in front of the minster and the remains of the cloister wall, creating shadows of the past, and re-viving the historical sense of the location using light. "Once upon a time" awareness was seen in contrast to "the cloister is no longer in existence" argument.