People/Products

Dwindling congregations and shifting demographics have led to church closings throughout Germany, as elsewhere, in recent years. Yet some, such as Saint Bartholom'us, a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, are deconsecrated and repurposed as columbaria housing the ashes of the deceased. After it shut down in 2006, the congregation wanted Saint Bartholom'us's building to retain a sacred space to hold funeral services in addition to a de-sanctified area to house the urns. Because Catholic doctrine permits burial within church walls only for popes, emperors, and archbishops, and it prohibits the celebration of the Mass in cemeteries, the task required the interior to be divided into two spaces, one sacred and the other secular.