Modern St. Matthew's

Back in 1938, Adolf Hitler decided to broaden Munich's Sonnenstrasse as a parade ground for his brown-shirted heroes. Smack in the center of the avenue was the Lutherans' 106-year-old St. Matthew's

Church. Hitler solved the problem with a wrecking crew and bulldozer.

Last week Munich was getting a new church to replace the old Neo-Renaissance building, but it was not the kind most churchgoers expected. For their design, the Lutherans had turned to Architect Gustav Gsaenger, 53, asked him for something that would cost no more than to rebuild the old church, yet would hold twice as large a congregation. Architect Gsaenger's proposal: a stark, clean-lined, oblong structure, to hold 1,000 worshipers and cost only 2,500,000 marks (about $595,000). Gsaenger's church has no traditional spire, no cruciform nave. Instead, it will have a flattish, gently undulating roof, and a square, 197-foot tower topped with a slim cross. Inside, Architect Gsaenger plans to erect movable steel and glass partitions, separating the church proper from an adjoining community center seating 400.

The news brought howls of rage and angry letters from Munich's conservatives. Wrote one aroused citizen: "We don't want Neo-Gothic brick churches, but we don't want gas stations, either." The protests fell on deaf ears. Munich's Lutherans had already steered the design past the city art commission. The ground, they announced, will be broken this month.

In Duesseldorf, 300 miles to the northwest, modern-minded churchmen of the Ruhr were having better luck with their city's sidewalk architects. To replace the bombed-out St. Rochus Roman Catholic Church, a young Luftwaffe veteran named Paul Schneider-Esleben has designed a building in the form of a three-leaf clover (representing the Trinity). The new structure will be connected to the old bell tower by a path which was once the main aisle of St. Rochus, using the twelve aisle columns (representing the twelve Apostles) as a border.

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