Architecture of the church of St. Joseph in Zabrze by Dominikus Böhm – historicism with the announcement of modernism and liturgical renewal

The article presents the church of St. Joseph in Zabrze by Dominikus Böhm as an architecturally unique object from the first half of the 20th century. When describing the spatial arrangement of the temple defined in the appropriate language of artistic and symbolic expression, the historicist element is emphasized as being of primary importance over the modernist one in the construction of the sacral arrangement. Consequently, preservation of the authentic historicizing content, after the post-conciliar changes in the liturgical arrangement of the interior in the second half of the 20th century, proves the originality of the concept of St. Joseph’s church, inspired by Romanesque, Gothic and even ancient Rome architecture. Simultaneously-introduced modernism refines the above content, which is related to a real return to the sources of early Christian thought. All this corresponds to the work of Dominikus Böhm. The universality of his architecture, after years of pre-conciliar use, responds well to the changes in the liturgical renewal of Vatican II. The sensitivity of the interior of the church in Zabrze to liturgical and cultural changes proves a high quality of his artistic work.