Erlöser Zürich, Modern concrete church in Riesbach district, Zürich, Switzerland

Erlöser is the Roman Catholic parish church of Riesbach, built in the Neues Bauen style to plans by architect Karl Strobel and consecrated in 1937. A high stair leads to the front wall with a large window, topped by three crosses on the roof; three portals stand for the Trinity. Inside, two low side aisles are separated from the nave by hexagonal pillars, and seven bays recall the seven sacraments.

The parish grew out of St. Anton in Hottingen after the First World War, when Riesbach's population rose. In 1933 a pastoral station with an emergency church opened in the vaulted cellar of the Altenhof house on Zollikerstrasse. Bishop Laurenz Matthias Vincenz laid the foundation stone on 21 February 1937; architect Karl Strobel designed the building, consecrated on 26 September 1937, and a decree of 22 December 1937 made Erlöser an independent parish.

The name Erlöser refers to Christ the Redeemer, chosen because the parish was founded in the 1933 Holy Year of the Redeemer. The church keeps a 1963 mosaic of Christ on the choir wall, flanked by Pope Pius X, the Curé d'Ars and Saint Rita of Cascia. The seven bays of the nave stand for the seven sacraments, and the three entrance portals for the Trinity.

The church stands at Zollikerstrasse 85 in the historic core of Riesbach, where the Altenhof house once stood. A tall stair leads up to the west front, whose large window is topped by three crosses on the roof; three portals open below. The nave has seven bays and low side aisles behind hexagonal pillars, with galleries running along the outer walls.

The church has no sixth bell: a planned bell in E-flat was never cast, leaving a five-bell peal. The bells were cast in 1950 by Albert Junker in Brilon, Westphalia, from a copper-silicon alloy called Briloner Sonderbronze, which makes this peal a rarity among Swiss bells.