Breitenfeld parish church

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Catholic parish church hl. Francis in Breitenfeld
inside view

The Breitenfeld parish church in Vienna is a Roman Catholic parish church on Uhlplatz in the Breitenfeld part of Vienna's 8th district , Josefstadt . It is dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi .

history

In honor of Emperor Franz I , who died in 1835 , a memorial church was to be built in Breitenfeld, a suburb of Vienna, which was still surrounded by city walls , which was then under the rule of the Schottenstift . The judge of Breitenfeld, Karl Georg Gaber, campaigned intensively because he assumed that with this justification he would rather get to a church for his small and insignificant place. The widow of the empress Karolina Augusta made a large donation in 1835. The church building association, founded on Gabor's initiative in 1839, collected donations throughout the monarchy . The Archbishop's Ordinariate and the Schottenstift saw no need for a church in Breitenfeld and therefore did not support the project for a long time.

When the architectural competition for the church could finally be put out to tender in 1886, the dowager empress and initiator Gaber had long since died; Breitenfeld had meanwhile become a densely built-up part of the Josefstadt district . In 1887, Emperor Franz Joseph I approved Alexander Wielemans' winning project . The laying of the foundation stone on the construction site chosen in 1885 on the planned Hernalser Gürtel took place in 1894 in the presence of the emperor and the Viennese archbishop Cardinal Anton Josef Gruscha . The church was solemnly consecrated on June 18, 1898 in the presence of the emperor.

Two weeks earlier, the belt line of the Viennese light rail , which was erected during the construction of the church and which runs in an elevated position here, was opened in the immediate vicinity of the church. From the viaduct of the means of transport, which has been operated as the U6 underground line since 1989 , you can still see the main portal of the church today. This does not open to the Breitenfeld district, but to the Gürtel transport artery, which the Breitenfeldern criticized at the opening.

The church suffered serious bomb damage in WWII in 1945 and was restored in 1947–1958. The last general renovation began in 1989 and was completed in 1998 for the centenary.

Architecture, design

Wielemans built the church as a brick shell in the style of the Lombard Early Renaissance from Trentino and karst marble . The church interior has three aisles and offers space for 2000 to 2400 people. Important artists of the time contributed to the design, including Richard Kauffungen (1854–1942; Franz von Assisi relief over the portal), Alfred Roller (Christ mosaic), Hermann Klotz and Othmar Schimkowitz (Sacred Heart statue). The altar and pulpit , both designed by Wielemans, are made of Grisignana marble. The high altar in renaissance form is covered with a temple-shaped crown. The high altar painting Maria vom Gute Rat was cut out of the frame and stolen on October 7, 2014.

The oil paintings on the two side altars are by Rudolf Bacher ( Nativity ) and Franz Xaver Zimmermann ( Descent from the Cross ). After 1945 statues of Saints Franz and Antonius, which Albin Moroder created, were erected. The statue of Pope Gregory the Great was made by Hans Müller .

organ

organ

The organ is the second largest playable Vienna (after the St. Stephen's Cathedral organ ). It was originally built in 1931 by Rieger-Orgelbau for the Innsbruck Cathedral in the historic case by Johann Caspar Humpel (1725). After Innsbruck received a new organ from the Pirchner organ building workshop, the old organ was transferred to Breitenfeld. From 1999 the organ builder Peter Maria Kraus (Lungau organ building workshop) completely revised the organ according to the new concept and installed it in a new case for the approx. 12 m³ of oak wood were required. In 2001 the organ was officially inaugurated, the approx. Has 5000 pipes and 56 stops on three manuals and pedal. In 2010 the parish church received a choir organ with 13 stops, which can be played both from the 4th manual of the main console in the organ gallery and from its own console by the ambo.

Web links

Commons : Breitenfelder Pfarrkirche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ High altar picture stolen from church , website of the daily newspaper Kurier , Vienna, update on October 10, 2014
  2. ↑ Breitenfeld parish church. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 417.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 43.5 ″  N , 16 ° 20 ′ 25.4 ″  E