Both cartoon and moving image

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Siegerland Motorway Church, designed and realised by schneider+schumacher, has now made its first appearance in the form of a cartoon illustration in a book. In his book “Beta … civilisations volume II” (Carlsen Verlag), Jens Harder illustrates the historical events of the last 2000 years in the form of 2000 cartoon drawings. Page 36 of the approximately 350-page book brings together important and visually impressive church buildings – including St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sagrada Familia and the Hagia Sophia– and it concludes with the motorway church on the A45. To complete this page, Jens Harder, looking for a modern and bold design was drawn to the motorway church. He claims: “It is the most emblematic building I can think of in this respect: a walk-in symbol of a church. Being so reductive, it almost looks like it’s been folded out of paper and its symbolic appearance, while not quite the same as a comic, is certainly heading in that direction in the way it resembles a logo or piece of graphic design, even a cartoon.”

And in another first for the motorway church, it plays the main role in an atmospheric short film by filmmaker Artur Krause, which impressively shows someone escaping from the hustle and bustle of a big city to the protection and silence of a small church – our motorway church.