American Church of St John
The American Church of St John (often just American Church for short ) in Dresden was an American church and was located at Reichsstrasse 5 (today Fritz-Löffler-Strasse ) in the southern suburb . The architecture of the building corresponded to the historicist neo-Gothic .
history
As part of the expansion of the city, American families also settled in Dresden. The Americans, who mainly belong to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, held their prayers as guests in the old orphanage church on Georgplatz. After the English congregation had built their own All Saints Church , efforts to build their own church increased here too.
The American Mrs. Thompson finally made the construction possible through a foundation established in 1869. The church was built between 1883 and 1884 according to plans by the Dresden architect Otto Dögel (1855-1891) behind the main station in neo-Gothic style. The newly built three-aisled hall church with its tower in front of Bergstrasse on the street side quickly became a landmark for the community due to its position.
Immediately next to the church was the parish and parish house, also designed by Dögel. In the church itself next to a artistically designed were altar , the pulpit and a baptismal font made of French limestone and a crypt . The paintings designed by the history painter Anton Dietrich (1833–1904) and the glass paintings of the three double windows of the choir made in the Dresden workshop by Bruno Urban (1851–1910) were worth seeing . The church was consecrated with the service on Christmas Day 1884. In 1900 the parish had around 200 members. However, it dissolved again in 1914 with the beginning of World War I , and the church has only been used irregularly since then.
It burned out during the air raids on Dresden in 1945, with the surrounding walls essentially and the tower with spire remaining completely intact.
In the post-war period, professors from the building faculty of the Technical University of Dresden and representatives of the State Monuments Office tried unsuccessfully from 1953 to hand over the sacred building to the Evangelical Reformed community. After they had moved into new rooms in the former court gardening shop on Brühlschen Terrasse , an expansion for the student community was considered in 1957 . Hans Bronder from the city planning office explained to Heinrich Rettig , who was requesting a construction permit , that the granting of a construction permit was impossible: "With a rebuilt American Church, the Church of Zion and the Church of St. Luke, three churches would be very close to each other ... in the immediate vicinity [ the Auditorium Maximum is planned as a future landmark of the Technical University, [where] the preservation of the American Church could not be reconciled with. ”For these reasons, the construction permit was rejected in 1957 and the church was blown up in 1959 as part of the scheduled clearing.
The new buildings announced in 1957 were - if at all - built elsewhere, the property is still green and open space today. The student residences built later in this area do not affect the church property.
literature
- Fritz Löffler : The old Dresden - history of its buildings . EASeemann, Leipzig 1981, ISBN 3-363-00007-3 .
- Matthias Lerm : Farewell to old Dresden - Loss of historical building fabric after 1945 . Forum Verlag, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-86151-047-2 .
- Volker Helas : Architecture in Dresden 1800–1900 . Verlag der Kunst Dresden GmbH, Dresden 1991, ISBN 3-364-00261-4 .
- Hans-Jochen Free Life: American Church . In: Lost Churches of Dresden Destroyed Houses of God A documentation since 1938. 2nd, extended edition, Dresden 2014, pp. 38–41. Also PDF
Web links
- Dresdner-Stadtteile.de: American Church of St John
- American Church website with a before-today comparison
Individual evidence
- ↑ Free life, p. 39.
- ↑ Lerm, p. 180
- ↑ Helas, p. 73
- ↑ Lerm, p. 180 f., P. 232, image on p. 181
- ↑ Löffler, p. 353
Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 56 " N , 13 ° 43 ′ 49.5" E