Ark (Wolfsburg)

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The youth hostel with the bed house (left) and the former church service room (right)
View from the southeast
The Noah statue with the dove

The Arche was an Evangelical-Lutheran institution of the industrial diaconia in Wolfsburg - city ​​center in Lower Saxony , founded in 1960 , named after Noah's Ark . The building that still exists today was inaugurated in 1972. The Wolfsburg Youth Hostel has been located there since 2011 .

history

In the 1950s there were first efforts to set up an industrial pastoral office in connection with the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg and to build an industrial church. The then bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover , Hanns Lilje , was one of the initiators. As early as November 1960 there was an industrial diaconal facility called "Die Arche" in a barrack on Kleiststrasse. In addition to industrial workers, the target group also included marginalized social groups. The institution was in the tradition of French worker priests . In 1963 the ark was searched by the police under Pastor Rudolf Dohrmann, as it was suspected that he had printed material from the GDR . In 1970 right-wing extremists set fire to the barrack and had to be torn down. The new building was based on a design by the West Berlin architect Peter Lehrercke from 1968 to 1972 at Kleiststrasse 18-20 in the west of the city center. It also served as a church for the then Martin Luther congregation. An adjoining house was the seat of the superintendent , other apartments were occupied by the sexton and a vocational school teacher.

In 2006 the Martin Luther Congregation was absorbed into the newly founded city parish. At the end of January 2008, the ark was closed for financial reasons. A request to the then regional bishop Margot Käßmann to avert the closure was unsuccessful. The profanation took place during a church service on January 6, 2008. The ark's altar and lectern were later placed in the Christ Church . After a long period of vacancy, the apartments were replaced by a ward block. In 2011 the youth hostel of the German Youth Hostel Association was opened . Since then, it has replaced the former, smaller youth hostel in Lessingstrasse, which was then torn down.

Architecture, equipment and use

The listed building consists of cuboid elements with an elongated main building. Most of the time, brick was used, which also dominates the square central room as a design element alongside skylights . The five entrances should symbolize openness. A bronze statue of Noah stands in front of the worship room. It was made by Waldemar Otto in 1960 . The associated pigeon was stolen in 2015 and not replaced. The central room with its movable furniture was used for church services, appearances, panel discussions and other purposes. After the profanation, it was converted into a two-story dining room. The former seminar rooms are located around an atrium.

See also

literature

  • Helena Wilkens: A bridge between the church and the world of work. The history of Industriediakonie Arche in Wolfsburg 1958–2008. Series: Texts on the history of Wolfsburg, Volume 38. Institute for Contemporary History and City Representation (Ed.). Uwe Krebs, Wendeburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-932030-68-0 .
  • Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , p. 121.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Old barrack in "Die Arche". Wolfsburger Nachrichten on November 7, 1960. In: City of Wolfsburg (Hrsg.): 50 years of Wolfsburg in the press. Wolfsburg 1988, p. 40.
  2. a b c d News of the Regional Church of Hanover from January 4, 2008 , accessed on January 31, 2014
  3. ^ Agent of God. In: Der Spiegel of March 6, 1963, accessed on January 31, 2014
  4. Arson incinerated the Ark. Wolfsburger Nachrichten of September 27, 2013, accessed on February 1, 2014
  5. ^ A b c Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , p. 121.
  6. ^ Year of the merger on the website of the church district Wolfsburg-Wittingen , accessed on February 3, 2014
  7. Entry at vanderkrogt.net, accessed on March 24, 2018

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 32 ″  N , 10 ° 47 ′ 2 ″  E