The Catholic Church of St. Elisabeth was built in 1962 -1965 by the architect and church builder Rainer Disse. His buildings can mainly be found in the Archdiocese of Freiburg. Through his expressive style, Rainer Disse (1928-2008), the Bauhaus disciple of Egon Eiermann, had a lasting influence on church construction, whereby his oeuvre polarized both the professional world and the local congregations.

His architecture bears witness to his engagement with the metaphysical principles of Rudolf Schwarz, but also with the ideas of Otto Bartning and Le Corbusier. Especially Rainer Disse's concrete churches, such as St. Elisabeth in Zähringen, are manifestations of extreme asceticism and reduction.

The overall structure consists of an approximate cubic church building with a flat roof, sacristy, and a free-standing 22-meter-high tower in front, with its walls structured with slot-shaped openings, windows, entrances, and sound arcades.

The entire complex is embedded in a forecourt and bordered with several rows of trees and concrete flowerbeds. The parish church of St. Elisabeth, which is integrated into the front and side square design, represents a high-quality architectural achievement that reflects the architecture of the 1960s in a characteristic way.

The ground plan, building cube and wall-fixed arrangement prove the distinct examination of clear geometrical basic forms such as rectangle, circle, oval, which are thoughtfully brought into relation with each other. In its forms with wall sections of raw exposed concrete, the architecture is committed to an ascetic style in architecture.

In the case of St. Elisabeth's, the development of architecture from the light, gracile of the 1950s to the closed mass of the 1960s, which is sculpturally structured by the juxtaposition of body and cavity, is particularly evident in the exterior construction.

Concrete, a material supposedly created for eternity, seemed to be the appropriate building material at the time for the conception of this sacred building in particular.

Buchauszug: 
Deck, Meike, 2013, Der Architektur und Kirchenbaumeister
Rainer Disse (1928-2008), 1. Auflage