From a distance, the 12-meter high concrete tower on its pentagonal foundation appears bright, austere, and clear over gently rolling spelt fields. An unusual but friendly foreign body stands there in a serene landscape. However, upon entering through the triangular portal, the impression changes radically. The almost gloomy, droplet-shaped meditation room made from a charred concrete skeleton is sparsely furnished: a bench, a stele with a figure of Saint Nicholas, and above head height, a wheel with six spokes as his symbol. The gaze is drawn further upwards; the structure is open to the sky. Sunlight pours in, just like rainwater, which collects on the lead-colored floor.
The Swiss Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor is currently working on his plans for the Cologne Diocesan Museum Kolumba, when he receives a letter from Hermann-Josef Scheidtweiler from the Voreifel, who is planning a chapel in honor of Saint Brother Klaus. The farmer sees him as the patron of the Catholic rural youth, while the architect knows him as Nicholas of Flüe, primarily as the revered patron saint of Switzerland honored by his mother.
A happy combination that makes the unlikely possible. After a long planning phase, from 2005 to 2007, a point of attraction for believers and architecture enthusiasts from all over the world emerges in Mechernich. The unusual chapel is based on an unusual building process. First, more than 100 spruce trunks were tent-like erected to form the later interior space. Then volunteers built layers of rammed concrete around the trunks up to a height of 12 meters through self-effort. They form the outer shell of the monolith. A three-week charcoal fire separated the tree trunks from the concrete, which were then lifted out from above with a crane through the opening. Finally, with a second fire, the raw concrete walls were blackened.
Through the narrowness and darkness, through rough materiality, reduction, but also the opening to the sky, the theme of asceticism and the God-given solitude of the hermit Brother Klaus is sensually taken up. The Brother Klaus Chapel is thus a crafted expression of traditional piety in the Eifel.
The chapel is open during the summer from 10 AM to 5 PM and during the winter from 10 AM to 4 PM; it is closed on Mondays.
