Heilig Kreuz

Heilig Kreuz stands in Stuttgart’s Sommerrain district, within the Bad Cannstatt area, as a modern Catholic church. Its steel, concrete, and glass structure rises beneath an asymmetrical triangular roof about fifteen metres above the altar. Wheelchair access makes the building reachable, while colourful stained-glass windows bring white and blue light indoors.

Consecrated in 1998, the church became the last Catholic church built that century in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. Wolfgang Liese-Grässer designed the replacement for an earlier church demolished in 1997, leaving its freestanding bell tower. Bernhard Huber created the stained glass, while Rudolf Kurz shaped the altar area with steel elements in the ambo and tabernacle. The former ambo now serves as a foundation stone in front of the parish garden.

A steel cross projects through a round façade window, interrupting the room’s balance with a reminder of suffering, illness, and death. A line runs from that window beneath the baptismal font toward the altar, resurrection window, and roof peak, expressing redemption through Christ. Inside, the Rensch organ from 1998 has two manuals and sixteen registers.