St. Josef Baden-Baden

St. Josef stands at the heart of Baden-Baden, a circular brick church on Lichtentaler Straße. It fills the gap between the older Stiftskirche Liebfrauen and the parish church of St. Bonifatius in Lichtental. A 40-metre freestanding tower rises beside the round nave, its four bells cast in Heidelberg in 1963. The building sits on land once part of the Palais Biron, where the Falkenbach stream was rerouted to make room. The church was born of necessity in the 1950s when the central parishes could no longer hold all the city’s Catholics. After a design competition, Hugo Becker’s plan for a modern round church was chosen. Werner Bergengruen wrote the foundation stone text and a nun from Lichtental Abbey copied it on to parchment. The new parish drew 6 183 members from two older parishes when it opened in May 1961. Inside, the broad oval hall seats 600 beneath a timber-lattice ceiling lit by glass-concrete windows. A black slate floor and white marble surround the baptismal font under a copper lid shaped like a dove. The altar, carved from a single block of marble, holds relics of early Christian martyrs. Above it hangs a carved triumph cross by Emil Sutor, while a five-panel Josefssäule tells the story of Saint Joseph in relief. The west-end organ, built in 1971, has 26 stops across three manuals and pedal.