St. Barbarakirche

The Pfarrkirche Bärnbach stands in the centre of the small town of Bärnbach in western Styria. Built between 1948 and 1950 by Karl Lebwohl with help from local miners and glassworkers, it became an independent parish church in 1952. The building is a single-nave hall church with a south tower topped by a gilded onion dome. The church is best known as the Hundertwasserkirche after its 1986–88 transformation by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The artist worked without fee and donated proceeds from his print Bärnbacher Andacht to cover part of the costs. Local artists Franz Weiss, Gustav Troger and Erwin Talker shaped the interior while the outer walls were clad in colourful ceramic tiles and painted plasters in the style of fantastic realism. Visitors enter through a park surrounded by twelve brick arches. Inside the church is plain and functional, with furnishings from the 1950s. The south tower’s onion dome gleams above the painted façades, and the gilded spheres on the roof catch the light. The nearby cemetery lies 1.5 kilometres to the southwest on the edge of Voitsberg.