TRAVELER’S DIARY:The Multiple Uses of Spaces
Exploring Parcours 2018, Art Basel’s section which engages the public and fairgoers by placing site-specific sculptures, interventions, and performances, outdoors or inside buildings across the city’s neighborhoods, we had the great luck to lose our way and to discover the multiple uses of a building, something that is common in Europe the last years.
By Efi Michalarou
We were trying in vain to find a video which at the end wasn’t projected inside Offene Kirche Elisabethen, but in a theater behind the Church. So, without to think about, we explored all the Offene Kirche Elisabethen’s spaces and we have come across a surprise: both at the entrance and inside the Church operates a small coffee shop, which hasn’t any repercussion at the Church’s structure and existence, since functions properly, as we passed through the gates, we heard the sounds of the Church Organ and at the same time a small Art Shop, located inside, was opening. We enjoyed our coffee, on metal tables that were placed on the left side as you enter the Hall, and this did not deducted anything from the sanctity of the place, after all the guests’ respect of the area was evident, at the same time, you were drawing peace and mental exultation from the architecture and the structure of the space. I want to remind you that Offene Kirche Elisabethen, is a 19th Century church building, located in Elisabethenstrasse 10-14, at the center of Basel, next to the Municipal Theater of the city. The Church is a well detailed example of Swiss Gothic Revival style churches with slender columns, glass windows letting in natural light, and flexible seating. It has a 72 metres tall bell tower and spire. The church was begun in 1857 and completed in 1864. Since 1994, she has provided spiritual, cultural and social services to all people, regardless of their background, skin color, sexual orientation or religion. It is open to all people of good will. She lives the Judeo-Christian tradition in ecumenical responsibility and interreligious consciousness. The Church is part of Evangelical-Reformed Church of the Canton Basel-Stadt and hosts the first “Open Church” or “Offene Kirche Elisabethen”. Since 1994 has provided spiritual, cultural and social services to all people, regardless of their background, skin color, sexual orientation or religion. The Church is open to all people of good will. Nearly 50’000 people visit the Church per year. Of course it’s not the first time we’ve been in a space like that, in 2004 I participated at a symposium and exhibition at the Abbey Neumünster Neumnster in the Grund district of Luxembourg. It was a monastery of Benedictine monks, dating from the 17th Century, it was rebuilt several times and the monks hunted during the French revolutionary period, it served as a police station and prison before becoming a Prussian barrack, also the buildings served as a state prison. Political prisoners arrested by the Gestapo between 1940 and 1944 were also held here before being transferred to Trier prison, Hinzert concentration camp or other destinations. Some 4,000 men and women passed through this prison during World War II, including members of the Luxembourg resistance, Italian anti-fascists and other opponents of the Nazi dictatorship. Since 1997, the buildings house the home of the European Institute of Cultural Routes, which participates in the European policy for culture. The spaces around the world that have change their use to welcome and promote Art and Culture are countless but the example of Offene Kirche Elisabethen in Basel is unique, due that hadn’t change its primal use but has opened its limits to life and that is its diversity (!)
