Documentation Flexible Church Interiors

The ‘Documentation Flexible Church Interiors’ was produced as part of the preparations for the fourth Swiss Religious Heritage Day in 2021, which was dedicated to the theme ‘Flexible Church Interiors: Current Redesigns’.

Assuming that, on average, a church undergoes a major renovation or refurbishment every thirty years, this amounts to 200 renovations per year, based on an estimated 6,000 places of worship in Switzerland. This figure is not entirely reliable, as we do not know the exact number of churches, chapels and monasteries in Switzerland, and furthermore, the intervals between renovations vary. But it does provide a rough guide.

Renovations and refurbishments

Renovations and refurbishments encompass a wide range of measures: maintenance, repair of damage to the building fabric, cleaning, refurbishment, and dealing with traces of previous refurbishments. Specifically, these include masonry restoration, roof and roof truss restoration, façade restoration, concrete restoration, asbestos removal, ceiling restoration, window restoration, restoration of artistic features, energy-efficiency improvements, thermal insulation upgrades, and the refurbishment of heating and building services.

Most renovations to sacred buildings focus exclusively on the areas mentioned above. Occasionally, however, renovations also provide an opportunity to consider alterations and redesigns, particularly of the interior. The reason for such alterations and redesigns is a change in the use of the buildings.

Flexible use

A major issue today is the desire to be able to use church spaces more flexibly. There are many reasons for this: changes to the liturgy, new forms of worship, increased use of the buildings for non-church events, right through to shared use with other institutions and reuse.

Indeed, the issue of making church interiors more flexible is linked to the topic of church reuse or the extended use of churches, which was discussed at the Swiss Religious Heritage Days in 2015 and 2017 and is documented with numerous examples in the ‘Church Reuse Database’. These examples have shown that reuse rarely involves sale or demolition. Much more common are shared-use or extended-use arrangements, in which the parish remains the owner of the building and continues to use it for its own purposes, whilst also making it available to other users, either temporarily or on a longer-term basis.

In contrast to reuse or extended use, we use the term ‘flexible use’ here to refer to arrangements in which churches continue to be used primarily for church events, but which encompass a broader spectrum than just the traditional Sunday service. Furthermore, flexibly configurable spaces make it easier to make churches available for non-church events as well.

Documentation

As preparatory work for this documentation, we have compiled a small database of church and chapel refurbishments carried out over the last ten to fifteen years. This database comprises 200 properties, which we have compiled based on surveys, our own knowledge and media research. For each property, we recorded the measures carried out as part of the refurbishments. In many cases, these consisted solely of standard refurbishment work. In quite a few instances, however, they also included conversions and redesigns. From these, we selected twenty examples, which we documented in greater detail.

The selection criteria were as follows: we chose examples from across Switzerland wherever possible, including both Roman Catholic and Reformed churches; we ensured that the conversions and redesigns covered a broad spectrum of different measures; we were interested in the processes that led to the redesigns; we studied the new functions the spaces now fulfil, and we assessed the quality of the examples in terms of functionality and architectural execution. Thirteen of the twenty examples have been completed; one is currently (August 2021) under construction, three are in the project phase, one is a temporary arrangement limited to ten years, and two examples are redevelopment projects that could not be carried out because, in one case, the parish council and, in the other, the Federal Commission for the Preservation of Historical Monuments rejected them. We have included the latter because lessons can also be learnt from failed projects.

We realise that the selection could be supplemented with many more high-quality examples. Should we have the resources and capacity, we would be happy to expand the documentation, though not proactively, but rather with material submitted to us. If, as a visitor to this page, you are aware of further examples of redesigned, flexible church spaces, we would be delighted if you could send us a brief description.

Objective

What is the aim of this documentation? We wish to highlight a topic that is increasingly coming to the fore in the renovation of churches and chapels and is highly topical. The topic is sometimes the subject of controversy both within church parishes and in discussions between the Church and heritage conservation authorities. Solutions must be negotiated, and a willingness to compromise is required. The documentation presents examples which, in our opinion, serve as models.

Furthermore, it aims to highlight specific issues arising from the general concern for greater flexibility. Topics such as movable seating, new liturgical spaces, changes to the basic layout with a new arrangement of the congregation, refurbishment of the entrance area, built-in features or extensions for toilet facilities, storage space, a kitchen, the addition of rooms for smaller events, a flexible lighting system, modernisation of the heating system, control of technical systems for different occasions, and more.

Flexible church spaces present a challenge. As the documentation shows, this challenge has been masterfully overcome in many places.

About us

The ‘Flexible Church Interior documentation’ was compiled by Lena Pflüger and Johannes Stückelberger.

Contact

If you spot any errors in the documentation, would like to suggest another site for inclusion, or have any suggestions or questions, please do not hesitate to contact schweizerkirchenbautag.theol@unibe.ch