St Moritz Church

Founded almost a thousand years ago, this church has been rebuilt several times, after fires over the centuries and heavy damage during the Second World War, and its interior has been reworked again and again to suit changing liturgical practice. In 2007 the parish approached the British architect with an entirely open brief for its conversion.

The refurbishment works with the sacred atmosphere of the building rather than against it. Traces of its Baroque past remain in the shape of the windows, in the spatial order and in the carved figures of the apostles that line the aisles, yet the space now reads as a single field of white walls and soft, even light.

Dark stained timber is kept for the pews, the choir stalls and the edging of the organ above the entrance, a sombre counterpoint to the pale envelope. Colour is almost entirely absent, with very few exceptions such as the figure of Christ the Saviour by the Baroque sculptor Georg Petel in the choir apse.

The floor is laid in light beige Portuguese limestone, the same stone that forms the monolithic altar block, which weighs four and a half tonnes.