Manifesta 16+ Building Workshop
client: kitev – Kultur im Turm e.V. & Oberhausener Tafel e.V., Manifesta 16+ Programme
size: 12 sqm
type: pavilion, design-build workshop, small architecture
completion: July 2026
key words: design-build, participation, timber construction, Manifesta 16 Ruhr, post-war church, community building, craft
role: Project Concept, Design, Coordination, Building
A pavilion built in four days by the people who would use it: a stage, a bench, a shelf and a sunshade for a church that has become a food bank.
A church that gathers people around a table
The church of Heilige Familie in Oberhausen was designed in the 1950s by Rudolf Schwarz with Josef Bernard. Schwarz is one of the most important church architects of the twentieth century, and this is the only one of his centralised churches still standing. It is a calm, concentrated space, with the altar placed in the middle of the room and people gathered around it on three sides, an idea of assembly built in brick and concrete.
Today the church has a second name: Tafelkirche. Its interior serves as a collection point, storage room and distribution station for the Oberhausener Tafel, the local food bank. Several times a week, people come here to collect food. The idea of gathering around a table has taken on a new, very literal meaning. The church is no longer only a listed monument. It is an active part of the neighbourhood.
Manifesta comes to the Ruhr
In the summer of 2026, Manifesta 16, the travelling European biennial, came to the Rhine-Ruhr region. It focused on post-war churches that have lost much of their congregation but none of their importance for the neighbourhood, and asked how they can become spaces for encounter, exchange and civic life.
As part of the Manifesta 16+ programme, kitev organised a series of events at the Tafelkirche: cooking workshops, shared meals, concerts and more. These events needed a frame, a place outside the church that invites people in, protects them and marks the site. The idea was to build a pavilion, and to build it together with the neighbourhood.
First watch, then build
The workshop did not start with a drill. On the first day, the participants joined the Tafel’s food distribution, not as a building crew but as helpers and observers. Where do the goods arrive? Which routes do the pallets and trolleys take through the church? Where do the queues form, and where does it get tight?
What we learned that day changed the design more than any sketch had. The work at the Tafel is physically hard, tightly timed, and only works because many volunteers show up reliably. For the participants, most of them young people from the city, this was the real beginning of the workshop. Building here did not mean placing an object in a space. It meant fitting into a place that already has its own choreography.
One structure, many roles
The brief asked a lot of a small piece of architecture. The pavilion had to be:
A stage: a frame for concerts, cooking events, yoga, readings and cinema evenings, bringing attention to the Tafel and to the church.
A place to rest: somewhere for volunteers and visitors to sit down during a break, even when no event is on.
Storage: crates on top, with pallets and trolleys fitting at least partly underneath.
Out of the way: it must never block the distribution routes.
An invitation: a presence that makes passers-by curious and draws them in.
Shelter: shade from the afternoon sun, and easy to rebuild later so that stored goods can be fully covered and protected from the weather.
The construction had to be just as clear as the programme. It needed a simple structure, few tools and materials that could be sourced locally, because it would be built by people who don’t work on a building site every day. The result is a timber structure that is easy to understand, easy to build and easy to adapt. It is at once furniture, stage, storage and seat.
Building as a social practice
For four days, the group cleaned, measured, sawed, sanded, painted, drilled and hammered. Volunteers, neighbours, young people from the neighbourhood and students worked side by side, and wood, sketches and quite a lot of arguing slowly turned into a pavilion. Along the way the participants learned to think like craftspeople: measure twice, cut once; pre-drill; align first, tighten after.
Something else happened that no construction plan can capture: people got to know each other. Between coffee breaks, borrowed tools and “can you hold this for a second?”, a connection grew between the builders and the people of the Tafel. That connection matters more than any clean mitre joint.
The pavilion now stands at the Tafelkirche. During Manifesta 16 it hosted cooking workshops, shared meals and events. Afterwards it is meant to stay with the Tafel as furniture, stage, storage and seat, long after the biennial has moved on. It shows that architecture can also be a way of bringing people together, and that what is built together is also looked after together.
