Krobitz, Chapel of St Anna
Small-scale renewal: A chapel resounds with music
“Old and new, tradition and innovation complement each other perfectly in this project. The innovative spirit, the sensitive handling of the site and its traditions, and the participation of and interaction with people clearly mark out the Chapel of St Anna in Krobitz as an IBA project.”
Prof. Barbara Holzer, IBA Thüringen Advisory Board
Until recently, the small Chapel of St Anna served just once a year as a place of congregation. Villagers from Krobitz in the Saale-Orla district came together to celebrate Ascension – outdoors, due to the dilapidated state of the interior.
The turnaround came in response to an open call for new and unconventional ideas for churches as part of the ›STADTLAND:Church‹ exhibition in 2017 initiated by the EKM Evangelical Church in Central Germany and the IBA Thüringen.
The renowned international artist Carsten Nicolai gave the 11th century Romanesque chapel a new musical heart: a sculptural installation entitled ‘organ’ in the form of a gas-powered pyrophone made especially for the chapel in 2017. The unusual musical instrument has since attracted hundreds of visitors to the chapel and other artists have now also been invited to contribute new compositions. The interior of the chapel was renovated with a few simple additions including a new rammed earth floor and a simple wooden bench around the perimeter. With minimal means, the chapel has been revived as a place of congregation, prayer, music and Baukultur.
The art installation for the Chapel of St Anna in Krobitz is an IBA candidate project by the EKM Protestant Church of Central Germany.
The pyrophone features two rows of gas flames and was built by Frank Fietzek and Rob Feigel. Drawing: Frank Fietzek.
In contrast to the classical (church) organ, the sound generators are flames, which produce sounds by resonating in glass cylinders.
IBA project manager Ulrike Rothe in conversation with the artist Carsten Nicolai.
The art installation lends the Romanesque chapel a special sense of place and turns it into a landmark in the gently undulating landscape of the Saale-Orla region. The art chapel is the first of a series of projects that derive from the “Think lateral!” call for ideas competition initiated by the EKM Protestant Church in Central Germany as a way of finding innovative ideas for the many empty churches in rural Thuringia.
Opening hours
The church is open for groups on request. Please send an email to: anfrage@st-anna-krobitz.de.
On an Amazing Resonance Space
Interview with Carsten Nicolai
organ is the title of a sculptural work by Carsten Nicolai, designed specifically for the St.-Anna-Kapelle originally built in the twelfth century, in Krobitz/Weira in Thuringia. In the widest sense, this work is a musical instrument that draws inspiration from early designs of so-called pyrophones from the late eighteenth century. In contrast to the classical (church) organ, the sound generators are flames, which produce sounds by resonating in glass cylinders. organ consists of twenty-five modeled acoustic resonance tubes, whose geometrical shapes are based on the model of the church or pipe organ. The organ pipes used are glass cylinders of various sizes, which are vibrated by means of small gas flames instead of the usual airflow in organ building. The special fascination lies in the fact that the generation of the sound does not remain invisible—as with the conventional organ—but becomes visible.
Why this really small church in Krobitz?
A part of my family lives in a village in Harzvorland, in the former border area. There is a small Romanesque church, which is in fact no longer used. It was always fabulously intact, completely pure and not spoiled, but meanwhile also forgotten over time. When I saw the church in Krobitz, it immediately reminded me of this. How beautifully these two little churches have aged. What remains is almost pure architecture, the rooms still appear as from the time of construction. And there is, of course, this timelessness—as if standing in front of old trees and wondering how many human existences they have survived. Nowadays you go into a building and you know it will probably be demolished in twenty-five years. But what immediately interested me is the very human dimension of this church. Churches are often striving Gothically upward. Whereas all of the Romanesque churches do not convey the ascension, this moment of conviction, but remain in the dimension of people. The church here is no bigger than a house, actually smaller than a house.
For an atheist-minded artist, churches are certainly a special challenge.
Originally I wanted to approach the whole thing much more radically and design the church interior completely. I immediately thought of Matisse or Rothko, who painted church interiors, or Le Corbusier, who was also an atheist and was permitted to plan many churches. I would therefore follow the tradition of modernity. At some point, however, I realized that the rooms would be better left as they are. I had no desire to make major interventions; so no intervention not just for reasons of monument protection, but somehow the strength of what was found, the aura or perhaps the patina, made an impression on me. The church as a place filled with energy. You do not necessarily want to impact the building, the substance, but respect the building just in its aura. I wanted to add something that fit, something complementary. So I came up with the idea of putting something in this building that has always been, that has been woven with the tradition of the Church. And since I work with sound and audio, it is much more exciting for me to design a musical instrument, than perhaps a more pictorial work. Of course it is boring in some sense, because it is so obvious. But I was tempted to redefine the idea of the organ, the idea of using a different technology than the bellows. In terms of its construction, a fire organ is not a new invention; it has existed parallel to the classical organ. It came about when trying to find alternative sounds, but this failed because other standards were more successful. The fire organ became a classic loose end in the history of technology. For us, it was a challenge and at the same time an experiment, because all of the old fire organs no longer exist. Of course there was always the aspiration from parishes to have organs in their churches. So some have one, others do not. Some a small, others a big one, which they no longer have repaired, and probably still a smaller one next to it. What has always bothered me about an organ is that you always only see these organ pipes, but you never know exactly where the sound comes from.
Then what is so new about an “organ” in a church?
That the organ is finally there, where you can also see it. The organ of the past, this wonderfully ornate organ, has been built so that you can only see it when you leave. And above all, it has become more and more a fixture, or rather a decorative element. Until today. The listener only sees the whistles, but does not know where the sound comes from. Here the parish is now sitting around, which also dissolves the normal division a bit. Here a certain democratization takes place. All meet on the same level, in one and the same room. Quasi a resort to Late Antiquity, when the first churches were built on the model of Roman basilicas, the place of assembly par excellence. The pulpit is still there, but if you occupy the center with this instrument, you have simultaneously an auditorium and a performance space, a theater.
Cover IBA Magazin #4
But above all an acoustic space?
Churches are acoustically perhaps the most complicated places. They have such a high reverberation, so strong a resonance at certain frequencies that one quickly understands that a church interior is always a huge resonance space. It should be swinging at people, as an amplifier ultimately of the word and the music. People’s religious faith should be strengthened as a whole. The church interior is more than a classical instrument, it is a resonance body.
organ exhibits another classical element of the chapel: the flame, the eternal light.
Flames have their own archaism beyond Christian symbolism. The primordial elements fire, water, air, and earth—basically one has everything there. organ plays on these basic elements. When the flame begins to resonate, then you see the air rise and the flame changes its color: the playing flame becomes blue, the non-playing flame remains yellow. The visitor will connect the fire with the sound; in principle, one has a visualization of the sound; that is the beauty of this synesthetic aspect. The flame is the light source and the fire at the same time. In winter, organ will also heat the church. Moreover, the flames deprive the environment of oxygen, so there is a rudimentary lack of oxygen. But this will not happen at the church in Krobitz, because it is too porous due to its age.
In the best sense, this sounds archaic, timeless, and somehow also meditative.
Yes, it is what one conceptualized the least in the beginning. Actually, it is a return to the original use of such spaces. That is the beauty.
Momentan keine Termine
- Evangelische Kirche in Mitteldeutschland
- Kirchengemeinde in Weira
- Gemeinde Krobitz/Weira in der VG Oppurg
- Freundeskreis
- Thüringer Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie
- Kulturamt Neustadt an der Orla
- Kulturstiftung des Bundes
- LEADER/ELER (LEADER-Aktionsgruppe Saale-Orla e.V.)
- Carsten Nicolai, Berlin
- WERKSTATT 4, Berlin
- yamaguchi - ufficio d'arte, Berlin
- nitschke + kollegen architekten, Weimar
- Büro für Szenografie chezweitz, Berlin
- WERKSTATT 4, Berlin
- yamaguchi - ufficio d'arte, Berlin
- Tischlerei Herden - Holzarbeiten, Weira
- handwerk & design Hoppert - Stampflehmboden, Oppurg
Ulrike Rothe
Projektleiterin
Telefon +49 3644 51832-13
ulrike.rothe@iba-thueringen.de