neviges - mariendom 13 - a photo on Flickriver

Pilgrimage Church of Mary (Gottfried Böhm, 1963-1972). These are shots from my first visit in 2010; when I recently posted a few views from 2012, I figured that by the time I got around to tackling all the negatives from this trip, I would surely have some words to capture this astonishing church. But here we are in June 2021, and Gottfried Böhm has just passed away at the age of 101, and it seems appropriate to post something even if the words still aren't delivering themselves to my fingers.

I could certainly rattle off the style labels: it's Brutalism, or maybe prewar Expressionism filtered through a starker, sharper-edged approach to rendering crystals in concrete form, or an entirely sui generis attempt to turn geology into architectural form. But once we were inside, getting the tour from a priest, what really struck me were not the architectural surfaces but the space and the shadows in between. The darkness in these shots is not just because I was shooting on fairly slow film with limited time to set up luxiously long exposures. The place is vast enough to be truly shadowy, and irregular enough that (unlike in the medieval churches that were surely on Böhm's mind), you don't feel a firm sense of what's up ahead or around the corner. And despite the touristic energies of a group of architecture students, normally in a frenzied scramble to explore and get photos just for the sake of doing so, we moved around slowly, hushed, feeling each footfall on the solid stairs, breathing it all in. This was something new under the sun.

As before, I must recommend the Böhm albums of my Flickr peers seier and Chris. Between the two, they convinced me that this was a must-see, and I later convinced Jackie that we could fit this one into the itinerary. No regrets there.

Taken on: July 16, 2010

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Pilgrimage Church of Mary

Gottfried Böhm

Wallfahrtskirche

Maria, Königin des Friedens

Mary, Queen of Peace

church

kirche

Mariendom

Bohm

Boehm

concrete

Brutalist

Brutalism

architecture

architect

interior

bldgtext

dark

sanctuary

lens flare

silhouetted

darkness

underexposed

dramatic

lighting

chairs

seating « less

Sets appears in: • Adventure 2010: Germany • Böhm Family more » • Lofty Discourse « less

Camera: Nikon COOLSCAN IV ED (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon COOLSCAN IV ED
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.14 (Windows)
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