St. Maria in den Benden, Modern church building in Wersten, Germany.

St. Maria in den Benden is a Catholic community centre on Dechenweg in Wersten, designed by Emil Steffann with Nikolaus Rosiny. Church, parish hall, rectory and kindergarten sit under one shared pitched roof around a square inner courtyard. The church room is windowless except for a tall glass facade reaching from floor to ridge, facing the courtyard to the southwest; the brick walls are exposed masonry. The concrete floor has pebbles of different sizes set into it.

St. Maria in den Benden was designed by Emil Steffann with Nikolaus Rosiny and consecrated in September 1959, after about eighteen months of construction on Dechenweg. The parish had been split off from St. Maria Rosenkranz after the Cologne archdiocese divided it into four parishes in 1953, and planning for the centre began in 1955. The Benden, a former wet-meadow field name, grew rapidly after 1934, and the church name keeps that landscape reference. A hall extension has been in use since 1985.

The parish complex brings together a church, community hall, kindergarten, and parish house around a central courtyard, echoing the spatial organization found in medieval monasteries. Visitors experience a place where religious practice sits alongside everyday community activities.

The entrance is on Dechenweg 40, reached through a closed forecourt and a porch with the baptismal font before the high rear wall of the church. The church itself has no windows; light enters through the tall glass facade facing the inner courtyard, which can be opened at the bottom. The bell hangs freely on the outer facade near the entrance portal.

The church bell hangs freely visible on the outer facade near the entrance portal. At its casting it received a verse by Angelus Silesius: "Es kann in Ewigkeit kein Ton so lieblich sein, als wenn das Menschenherz mit Gott stimmt überein." The concrete floor also holds pebbles of varying sizes, a reference to the nearby Rhine landscape.