Baden-Baden motorway church
The St. Christophorus Baden-Baden motorway church is located at the Baden-Baden service station on the federal motorway 5 in Baden-Württemberg . The patron saint of the Autobahn Church is St. Christopher . He is considered the patron saint of travelers.
history
The idea to build this motorway church dates back to 1965. For this purpose, the neighboring community provided the site on which the motorway church is today. But without the commitment of the pastor and mayor , the establishment of the church would not have been possible. They were also the ones who gave the Archdiocese of Freiburg the urgently needed arguments for building a church; not least because the archdiocese had to be won as the main financier. In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the flow of traffic on the autobahn, the autobahn church was intended to offer motorists an opportunity for religious reflection. In the course of an architectural competition, the proposal by Dipl.-Ing. Friedrich Zwingmann selected.
The groundbreaking ceremony took place on October 21, 1976, and almost two years later, on July 23, 1978, the inauguration by the Freiburg Auxiliary Bishop Karl Gnädinger took place. Today, an estimated 300,000 visitors come to the Autobahn Church every year.
architecture
The church has a pyramid shape with surrounding window walls. The connection from the outside to the inside of the complex is made up of colorful enamel doors. The church building, whose frame also forms a cross, stands in the middle of the complex. At the side behind the altar there is the possibility to light candles. The surrounding window walls alternately show scenes from the life of Jesus and the Apocalypse . They are irradiated all around when it gets dark.
- Doors
In front of the door
South side door
North side door
Outdoor area
Four maple avenues in the shape of a cross lead towards the church, pointing in all four directions. At the end of each avenue, a huge concrete column marks the beginning of the church area. This type of concrete art is repeated throughout the building. The representations made negative in styrofoam appear as positive, slightly rough or porous-looking reliefs poured through concrete. The sculptor Emil Wachter , who was responsible for the entire artistic design of the Autobahn Church, decorated almost every part of the Autobahn Church in this way, including the walls, the roof structure, the altars and the sculptures outside the church. At a distance of about 50 meters, the church is flanked by four concrete relief towers, arranged according to the four cardinal points. Each of the picture towers is intended to symbolically transfer the Bible into the present:
- In the east: Noah - know where from
- In the west: John the Baptist - know where to go
- In the north: Elia - the individual and the power
- In the south: Moses - God and society.
In addition to figures and scenes from the Bible, there are also some from more recent times on the picture towers.
Bells
In the course of the redesign and expansion of the Baden-Baden petrol station and rest area, the Karlsruhe regional council planned to create a work of art on the area of the rest area in the line of sight of the motorway church. Since the motorway church did not have its own bells, various parties had been considering looking for a location for bells on the motorway church for a long time.
For this purpose, a four meter high concrete foundation was poured in November 2012. Emil Wachter could be won over to design the concrete base and the bell decorations, but he died in January 2012. His daughter Dorothee Bode took over the design of the bell decorations.
In July 2013, the bell carrier was placed on the base, which was in use at the Papal Mass in Freiburg and is a gift from the Archdiocese of Freiburg . It carries two bells from the Bachert bell foundry , which were consecrated on July 22, 2012: The two bells are intended to represent the dialogue between God and man.
The big bell with a weight of 1000 kg and a diameter of 120 cm is called "God's bell". The pictures of this bell show on the one hand the eye of God who watches over all creation. On the other hand, God can be seen as a shepherd who lovingly holds a sheep in his hands, according to the biblical images of the Good Shepherd. The images testify to God who has come close to us in Jesus Christ. The bell of God sounds in tone f 1 .
The small bell with a weight of 500 kg and a diameter of 90 cm reminds of the person who longs for peace and salvation, for happiness and fulfillment, and ultimately for God. It is therefore called the “human bell”. The word of prayer for the opening of the Church's divine office can be read on the “human bell”: “O God, come to my aid. Lord, hurry to help me ”. In one picture you can see the longing hand stretched out, houses, trees and plants underneath. The second picture of this bell shows God as the protector of man. The bell rings in tone b 1 and strikes “for all people of good will”, so the words of the inscription.
On the tower and six other places in and around the church there are also QR codes that were placed for mobile internet-enabled devices as part of the Spiritual Church Tour project . They provide information about the history of the tower, the imagery and the theological program of the church designed by Emil Wachter.
literature
- Emil Wachter : The world of images of the Baden-Baden motorway church. With contributions by Alfons Deissler and Herbert Schade. 2nd Edition. Herder, Freiburg 1982, ISBN 3-451-18948-8
Web links
- Information page of the Autobahnkirche Baden-Baden
- Information page from Heinz Trauboth, Foundation "Art and Technology"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Baden-Baden motorway church. Retrieved May 23, 2018 .
- ↑ Catholic motorway church St. Christophorus in Baden-Baden Archdiocese of Freiburg, accessed on September 19, 2017
- ↑ Bells consecration in the Autobahnkirche Baden-Baden ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dekanat-baden-baden.de, accessed on March 30, 2013
- ↑ Bells for the St. Christophorus Baden-Baden autobahn church ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Bell tower and QR codes promote the Baden-Baden autobahn church ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , epd.de, July 21, 2013, accessed on August 22, 2013
Coordinates: 48 ° 48 ′ 36 " N , 8 ° 10 ′ 46.1" E