Picturesque, straight out of a landscape painting – that is picturesque. And that applies to the seven wooden wayside chapels near Dillingen an der Donau.
In the middle of a slope full of meadows, fields
and scattered groups of trees stands Volker Staab's chapel near Kesselostheim. Photo: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede
“In the evenings I walk over field and meadow, the blue sky above me, around and beside me green seeds, green trees, and I am not alone; for he who created heaven and earth is around me.” – Caspar David Friedrich
Two specifications: Wood and cross
Caspar David Friedrich was aware of the importance of nature for himself and for his time, that of Romanticism. Nature offered – and still does – space for the subjective feelings of the individual to take precedence over reason, to escape into mysterious and melancholically beautiful worlds, to find security and God. The seven wayside chapels around Dillingen are a good example. The Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation, established in 2016, is responsible for the “Seven Chapels” project. The foundation’s aim is to promote art, history, the church, religion and culture. With this aim in mind, Peter Fassl, district curator and deputy chairman of the foundation, developed a plan in discussions with the founder and timber entrepreneur Siegfried Denzel at the beginning of 2017. In the same year, a selection of possible locations was made together with architect Hans Engel, with the executing architects ultimately choosing their own locations: Seven chapels by architects Hans Engel (Augsburg), Frank Lattke (Augsburg), John Pawson (London), Volker Staab (Berlin), Alen Jasarevic (Mering), Christoph Mäckler (Frankfurt am Main) and Wilhelm Huber (Betzigau) were built between 2018 and 2020 around the Danube, along some of the newly created cycle paths. The architects only had two specifications to consider in their design: The chapel was to be made of wood and have a cross. The architects responded to this concept individually. How? A hike along the approximately 130-kilometre circular cycle path shows you.
Photo: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
12 stainless steel column bases were concreted into the floor slab to minimize the deformation of the round columns.
Gundelfingen chapel on the cycle path to Offingen by Hans Engel
For us, the circular route begins with a chapel that stands out from the crowd – the cycle path chapel near Gundelfingen by Hans Engel. It is the only chapel with an open design that consciously incorporates the surrounding nature. Located directly on the water, it was the first chapel to be completed and was blessed on June 30, 2018. Engel deliberately designed “not a building, but an open structure made of reduced, weather-resistant components”. The idea behind this is to create a clearing between four copper beeches, the banks of the Danube and fields. The result is never final, but depends on the changing times and landscape. The chapel has a cross-shaped floor plan measuring approximately five by five meters and is also five meters high. Twelve turned larch wood columns support the flat wooden roof. There are three graphically printed glass walls made of frameless safety glass. On the glass side walls are theological and philosophical quotations from all over the world. They refer to nature. An artistically designed glass panel with a cross hangs in a kind of altar room. There are two seating areas in the side niches.
Photos: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
The walls were built using timber frame construction. The roof structure made of bars clearly illustrates the distribution of forces.
Wayside chapel in Oberbechingen by Frank Lattke
The second wayside chapel is located between Oberbechingen and Wittislingen at a fork in the road. Frank Lattke chose a building site located in an area of fenland covering around 250 hectares in the Swabian Alb – the Dattenhauser Ried. From a distance, the top of the roof is barely visible from the fields. The wooden architecture reveals itself to the observer with every step towards the chapel. Once there, birdsong can be heard from inside the chapel, and a feeling of security and peace spreads. “The intention is not to create a towering architectural symbol in the landscape, but a place of contemplation that gives visitors a foothold in the vastness of the landscape,” says the architect. The flat topography with the shoreless horizon characterizes the site and finds an anchor point in the almost eight-metre-high chapel. The steep and angular architecture rises above the square base area of around five by five meters. It is clad in untreated spruce boards that turn gray with the weather. The chapel thus merges with the landscape.
The entrance is created by a gable wall made of sticks that curves into the room. Here, too, the space opens up with every step: from low to high, from narrow to square, from concrete floor to parquet made of spruce cubes. The interior is spanned by a filigree, diagonal bar structure that begins in the corners of the floor. The construction guides the eye and makes the room appear higher. Birds nest directly under the ridge. The cross made of burnished, brushed and narrow tombac sheeting rises almost suspended from the rear corner of the room. It is framed by two slender, floor-to-ceiling window openings. The lighting mood is created by the light coming in from the entrance: it falls gently and varies depending on the position of the sun through the open bars and fills the interior made of untreated spruce wood with different bright, warm shades of color.
Photo: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
Despite processing by CNC-controlled machines, a lot of manual work was still required due to the beams only being seamed on three sides.
Chapel of John Pawson in Unterliezheim
John Pawson ‘s “Wooden Chapel” is hidden at the edge of the forest near Unterliezheim. Coming from the valley, the compact chapel only reveals itself on the ascent. The architecture looks like a sculpture made of stacked tree trunks and bark – simple, yet monumental. A total of 40 Douglas fir trunks with a length of around 12.5 meters and a diameter of 90 centimeters were transported from the Black Forest for the construction. You enter the chapel through a narrow entrance. The interior, which is around six meters high and eight meters long, is dominated by the sawn wooden surfaces of the trunks. A window lets light into the room and draws the eye to the church tower in the village. A gap along the long sides directly below the ceiling lets soft light into the room. At the front is a cross through which amber-colored daylight shines from outside. Through the contrast between the narrow, condensed chapel interior and the panoramic landscape, Pawson creates a fascinating interplay of spatial narrowness and expanse.
Photos: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
For structural reasons, it was decided to use two crosswise arranged, tapered wooden brackets made of laminated veneer lumber.
Photos: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede
Kesselostheim Chapel by Staab Architekten
Volker Staab designed the chapel near Kesselostheim. Situated in the middle of a slope full of meadows, fields and scattered groups of trees, the approximately 14-metre-high tower blends in between four trees. The view is a key factor in the choice of location. A 35-metre-long footbridge leads to a small square, which is closed off by a wall with a recessed bench. Opposite it stands the chapel tower on an area measuring four by four meters. At first glance, the architecture appears compact, but it consists of a permeable envelope of square lamellas arranged one above the other. Two wooden brackets arranged crosswise support the slats. Cable bracing reinforces the construction. Rain, snow and wind enter the interior through the walls and the open ceiling. But light also falls through the slats and creates an atmosphere that the architect deliberately controls: the differently aligned slats primarily illuminate the upper part of the tower and thus emphasize the pull towards the sky. In addition, the construction tapers slightly towards the top. Although the cross is present twice in the chapel, it is not clearly recognizable as a Christian symbol: a metal cross is embedded in the floor and is repeated in the construction at the top of the tower as a connecting element. Only those who seek a place of Christian devotion will find it.
Photo: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
Three five-day cross-laminated timber panels form the room - hewn on the room side and covered with a shingle cladding on the weather side.
Ludwigschwaige Chapel by Alen Jasarevic
Alen Jasarevic‘s wayside chapel is located in the Danube floodplains near the Schwaigen. The chapel rests between deciduous forest, the Danube’s oxbow lake and fields. When viewed from the front, it looks like a twelve-meter high tepee. But the idea is different: It is intended to symbolize hands joined in prayer. The almost triangular base is six meters long and widens from two to five meters. From the outside, the architecture is clad with natural shingles. The entrance is concealed behind a triangular door made of untreated steel. Once inside, the door closes slowly, heavily and automatically. A dull, thunder-like sound fills the room, and your gaze wanders to the only source of light at the highest point of the chapel. At the open top, two rods independently form a cross. Ambient sounds, sun or rain penetrate through the high opening and affect the atmosphere. Three steps lead down into the chapel room. The floor and steps are made of concrete. They form a kind of trough, above which three 14-centimetre-thick cross-laminated timber panels form the walls and roof. Sculptor Josef Zankl worked the entire surface of the interior with a gouge. Thanks to its overall spiritual effect and craftsmanship, the chapel is one of the most powerful on the circular route.
Photos: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
The individual beams made of weather-resistant larch are firmly screwed together and all corner joints are rebated.
Chapel near Oberthürheim by Christoph Mäckler
The chapel designed by Christoph Mäckler is the youngest on the circular route. It was blessed on December 19, 2020. The wooden house stands on the edge of wide, flat fields near Oberthürheim, right on the edge of a small forest and marked by large chestnut trees. It is eight meters long, three meters wide and the entrance is located in a porch measuring around two by two meters. The chapel is reminiscent of the archetype of a log house with a pitched roof, but the architect emphasizes the verticality with the enormously steep roof. The proportions of the chapel are clearly based on the Gothic church building. This intention is even more evident inside: 150 small square colored glasses bathe the room in a deep blue light, while a kind of choir stall on the long sides directs the eye to a golden yellow glass cross in the gable wall. Unprecedented, the chapel seems to have stepped out of a Romantic painting as a picturesque gem.
Photo: Eckhart Matthäus/ Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
Inside, the wall surface is made of spruce cross-laminated timber, while the ventilated exterior façade is made of durable larch wood cladding.
Emersacker Chapel in the Laugna Valley by Wilhelm Huber
Our final stop is the “Blue Chapel” by Wilhelm Huber. The twelve-metre-high, tower-like chapel stands between tall spruce trees and a country road in the elongated Laugna valley. The interior is accessed via a covered forecourt and a sliding door. While untreated larch wood characterizes the architecture on the outside, the interior features a different play of colours – white and blue. The light falls through a blue hand-blown skylight and is reflected on the white-painted walls. A filigree metal cross stands almost in the middle of the room. The seven chapels set religious landmarks, form powerful symbols in the landscape and at the same time provide a sense of security. One is reminded of Novalis’ demand that the world must be romanticized for its original meaning, and feels the active and timeless power of romanticism around and in the chapels.
The book on the circular route "7 Wegkapellen. Architectural Landmarks in the Danube Valley" was published by Firmer Verlag in 2021.
Publication of the Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation
“7 wayside chapels. Architectural landmarks in the Danube valley”
Edited by Peter Fassl, Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation,
published in March/2021,
22 by 28 centimeters, hardcover
312 pages, 100 illustrations
ISBN 978-3-7774-3738-5
More about the Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation and the book here.
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