Meanwhile: Appreciating the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel

The chapel is austere but rich in sensory presence. Light and shadow, the smell of charred wood and the roughness of the walls create a space grounded in phenomenological experience.

Kim Bong-ryeol

The author is an architect and a former president of the Korea National University of Arts.

In the rural village of Mechernich near Cologne, a modest farming couple, the Scheidtweilers, lived a life they described as happy and good. Out of gratitude, they hoped to build a small chapel dedicated to their patron saint, Bruder Klaus. They wrote to Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, saying they had almost no budget but would offer their land, time and labor. By chance, Zumthor’s mother had long admired the saint, and the architect agreed to take on the project.

The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel in Mechernich near Cologne, Germany. [KIM BONG-RYEOL]

The structure stands like a solitary monolith in the middle of a vast wheat field. Covering about 50 square meters and rising 12 meters high, the chapel is compact, with an interior small enough that even four people feel crowded inside. It has no heating system, no lighting and no water facilities. Despite its simplicity, the chapel took five years to design and two years to build before its completion in 2007. Zumthor declined any design fee, repeatedly visited the construction site and adjusted plans as he worked alongside local builders.

The core of the structure came from 112 tall pine logs arranged as a conical interior mold, nicknamed the wigwam after the conical dwellings of Native American communities. Workers erected a second mold outside, then filled the space between with rammed concrete. The mixture, made from earth, gravel and lime, was compacted in 50-centimeter layers once a month by local farmers. After two years, the process produced 24 stratified layers of textured walls.

When the concrete set, the pine logs inside were burned out, leaving a scorched interior marked by more than 100 vertical grooves. The smoke and char etched a rugged surface that defines the space.

Bruder Klaus, a fifteenth century Swiss hermit priest, spent 20 years in seclusion. In his visions he described darkness like that of the womb and light like that of birth. Zumthor translated these images into architecture. An oculus shaped like a womb pierces the roof, exposing the interior to sun, wind and rain. Melted lead spread across the uneven floor forms shallow pools when it rains. A single bench, a candle holder and a small bust of the saint complete the sparse interior.

The chapel is austere but rich in sensory presence. Light and shadow, the smell of charred wood and the roughness of the walls create a space grounded in phenomenological experience.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.