The Pavilion of Christian religions, a combined contribution of the Catholic and Protestant Churches for the EXPO 2000, was intended to be a contemplative counter-part to the vanity fair with architectural highlights: Simple in structure, reduced to a few materials, precise in detail, unmistakable in its appearance and spatial atmosphere. The architecture of the Pavilion is restricted to the clear presentation of the modular construction and its details. The modest and simple choice of materials, steel, glass, gravel and water, are “decorated” with the addition of one large tree. The surrounding cloister, 4 m wide and 6.80 m high, frames the overall complex and simultaneously functions as an exhibitions space. In the north the cloister comprises a voluminous hall 21 m square and 18 m high, with its roof supported by nine slender cross-formed steel columns. This hall, its dignity and solemnity emphasized by lighting and strong verti-cality, can be approached directly from the main square as well as from several con-nections from the surrounding cloister. Spatial “enclaves“, 3.60 m high, deep and wide, are located in the transmission between “Christ Hall“ and the cloister as “Rooms of Silence“, where themes of Christianity and the Church are communicated to the visitor in a semantic interpretation. The spatial atmosphere of all areas is created by a modula-tion of light. The whole complex was dismantled after the EXPO in Hanover and re-erected in a modified form in the Cistercian monastery in Volkenroda, Thüringen in 2001.
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