"Ein Tag in DEinen Hallen"





Eigentlich ist das ehemalige St. Peter's College in Cardross (Erzdiözese Glasgow) ein Fall für Kirchenschwinden. Aber da es 1. nicht in Deutschland liegt und 2. eine Station in meinem Lebenslauf war, ist es hier besser aufgehoben.

Als ich im Winter 1979/80 ein paar Monate dort verbrachte, fand ich das Gebäude häßlich und, weil underpopulated, leer und kalt. Daß es sich um Spitzenarchitektur des 20. Jahrhunderts handeln könnte: der Gedanke ist mir damals nicht gekommen. Doch die Twentieth Century Society schreibt:

St. Peter’s Seminary poses fundamental questions about the nature of C20 buildings and their conservation. St. Peter’s is a ruin. And, as with other ruins of recent buildings there is something shocking and at the same time fascinating about this. But not that many buildings of the 1960s are visited by a constant stream of architectural pilgrims, artists, students and the plain curious in the way that St. Peter’s is. People appear to be driven to get to this building. One needs to fight one’s way through the densely overgrown former park of the Kilmahew Estate, and the path is not easy to find from the village of Cardross. But many do find it and when one arrives, the building exerts a power that is gripping.

St. Peter’s had a very short life as a building in the use for which it was designed, namely a seminary for the education of Catholic priests. As such it served only 14 years from its opening in 1966 until 1980. Why was this? Anticipating a growth in population, and therefore in congregation post 1945, the Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow embarked on an ambitious church building programme. The Church commissioned some of the most important new architecture of that period in Britain, much of it designed by Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan of Glasgow architects Gillespie Kidd and Coia.

But the Church’s role in society changed. The Archdiocese had misjudged their future prospects, and instead of expanding as the Archdiocese had anticipated, the Church as an institution experienced a decline in fortunes that has continued to the present day. Completed at the height of the Church’s building programme, St. Peter’s highlights the tragedy of this situation.

Designed by Gillespie Kidd and Coia and on a remote site on the North bank of the Clyde outside Glasgow, at Cardross, St. Peter’s was meant to house over one hundred student priests. This number was never reached, and as the years passed student numbers shrank. The problems of maintaining an under-used building, together with its unsuitability as a teaching facility following changes in the culture of the Church after the Second Vatican Council, led to its abandonment. Several attempts to find alternative uses for the building came to nothing.

Im Januar oder Februar 1980 zog das Seminar in ein ehemaliges Kloster in Glasgow-Newlands um, eine Aktion, bei der ich kurzzeitig einen gewissen Ruhm erlangte, weil es mir gelang, die Patrologia Latina korrekt anhand der römischen Zahlen auf den Buchrücken zu sortieren. Ein Hotel sollte damals aus dem "alten" Seminar werden, das damals wie heute an einen wunderschönen Golfplatz grenzt.

Stattdessen zeigen uns Bilder aus dem Jahr 2003 nicht nur Ruinen, sondern einen wahrhaft profanierten und entweihten Hochaltar. Seit 1984 gibt es das St. Peter's College nicht mehr; es ging erst im Chesters College, dann im Scotus College auf, dem gemeinsamen Seminar der schottischen Bistümer. Daneben gibt das "Royal Scots College" in Salamanca und das "Pontifical Scots College" in Rom. Überlaufen ist keines davon.





(Diese und weitere Bilder bei hiddenglasgow)