Christophorus Church (Berlin-Siemensstadt)

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Christophoruskirche
Detail: west portal
Side view

The Protestant Christophoruskirche , originally Protestant Church Siemens city is located on Schuckertdamm 336-340 in Berlin district of Siemens city of Spandau . It was developed by Hans Christoph Hertlein in the architectural style of the New Objectivity designed and is under monument protection .

history

The district created by Siemens in the colony on Nonnendamm since 1897 and called Siemensstadt since 1914 was equipped with all the infrastructural facilities required for a community in addition to production facilities. Church institutions did not initially exist. The Protestant Christians were cared for by an assistant preacher from the parish of St. Nikolai from Spandau. Protestant worship and confirmation lessons took place in school rooms from 1906, and in 1907 the congregation set up a “prayer room” in an apartment that turned out to be too narrow. The Prussian "Settlement Act" prescribed the provision of the churches for the two major Christian denominations.

In 1908, the Siemens company acquired a small wooden chapel, which was built by the architects Johannes Vollmer and Heinrich Jassoy for around 20,000  marks for the Protestant Epiphany community in Charlottenburg as an interim church, in line with its commitment entered into in 1904 . The chapel was rebuilt at the corner of Rohrdamm and Jugendweg and on September 6, 1908, it was designated as a provisional church for the approximately 580 members of the congregation. In the long run, the small church could not meet the pastoral demands of the growing community. In 1928, the construction site for a large, representative church was determined on the north-western periphery of the planned Heimat settlement, on Schuckertdamm opposite the confluence of the Lenther Steige. The Siemens company made the land that was left out of the building of the church, along with the parish and parish hall, available to the evangelical community free of charge and, as the client, paid the costs for the building, which were estimated at 660,000 marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 2,629,000 million euros). The cornerstone of the new church was laid on July 21, 1929 . The church consecration of the new church for the now around 9,000 members of the congregation took place on December 9, 1931 in the presence of Carl Friedrich von Siemens . After the completion of the church, the chapel was torn down, rebuilt as the Wichern chapel (today: Wichernkirche) in the forest settlement of Hakenfelde and inaugurated on October 23, 1932.

At the time of National Socialism , pastor Heinrich Kroppenstedt from Siemensstadt - pastor in Siemensstadt from 1912 to 1954 - belonged to the Confessing Church and was a close confidante of Superintendent Martin Albertz . Kroppenstedt was warned in 1934 by the church leadership, which was under the influence of the German Christians . The German Christians had the majority in the parish church council and in 1934 they pushed through the establishment of a second pastorate in Siemensstadt, which was filled by Pastor Lüders. There were constant clashes in everyday life in the community. On July 25, 1937, after the service, Heinrich Kroppenstedt was arrested by the Gestapo for illegally canceling a collection for the Confessing Church and imprisoned in Plötzensee until August 17, 1937 . The church leadership withdrew from him the management of the parish, which Kroppenstedt only took over again at the end of the war .

Surname

The church was given to her 60th anniversary in 1991 after the legendary Saint Christopher the name Christophoruskirche who leaned on the name of the youth center in Kroppenstedtweg. At the same time, the Christophorus window by the Siemensstadt artist Siegmund Hahn (1926–2009) was installed.

Building description, equipment

Choir and apse

The building complex consists of a church tower, parish and parish house and the rotunda behind the tower , which is covered with a smooth conical roof. Since the Reformation, the rotunda has been seen as the ideal form for Protestant church building.

The location opposite the confluence of the Lenther Steige in the Schuckertdamm was chosen as the location for the church tower. On both sides of the tower, the two 25-meter-long, two-storey side wings of the parish and parish hall adjoin the symmetry axis of the Lenther Steige. In front of the church tower, which is set back from the street, there is a square raised by three steps, low connecting buildings lead to the parish and parish house, which is about seven meters on the left and right opposite the tower.

The wing of the building, consisting of the tower and the side wing, is a masonry structure that is faced with hand-painted red clinker bricks. The decorative parts are made of terracotta . The blind also with brick building of the rotunda is made of reinforced concrete , as well as the gallery and the ceiling.

Church interior

View of the chancel

The diameter of the church interior is 21 meters, its height ten meters. The church stalls on both sides of a central aisle offer space for around 450 people, the multi-row gallery, which encompasses almost the entire church space, around 260. All of the seats are oriented towards the altar , a simple brick block. This is opposite the entrance in the apse facing north. It is lower than the church interior. The light of the rising sun falls on the altar through a window in the upper area to the east. Dark clinker pilaster strips structure the apse wall, which is divided into twelve niches. The wall surfaces between the pilaster strips are provided with geometric ornaments . A wooden crucifix hangs from the ceiling above the altar . A painting on the ceiling of the apse by Albert Birkle had been painted over since the post-war period , but it was exposed again during restoration work. The pulpit to the left of the altar is also bricked, but unlike the altar, it is plastered. Above it is a wooden sound cover with two angels holding a laurel wreath with the Christ monogram .

Waldemar Raemisch's baptismal font to the right of the age is over two meters high and consists of a brass bronze cylinder resting on supports, the lid of which bears a dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit .

The church interior is closed at the top by a wooden ceiling that rests on a cornice . The eye of God adorns their center in a halo. The woodwork on the ceiling, parapet of the gallery and cornice were designed by Joseph Wackerle , as well as the crucifix above the altar.

View through the church to the organ

The church area receives daylight through rectangular windows above and much smaller ones below the gallery. Many of the windows manufactured by Puhl & Wagner were destroyed in the Second World War. They were replaced by simple ones during the repair . Artificial light afford, whenever necessary octagonal pendant lights in the style of modernism, which are fitted in the circular ceiling.

organ

The organ is located on the gallery above the entrance , the prospectus is inserted in a semicircular wall niche . The manuals are on the side in front of it. The organ was built in 1931 by Eberhard Friedrich Walcker . It was restored by the Westphalian organ builder S. Sauer according to the sound of the late romantic organ movement and returned to the community on September 25, 2005. The pocket-store instrument has 30 registers and three transmitted registers on two manuals and pedal. The actions are electric.

I main work C – a 3
1. Principal 8th'
2. Drone 8th'
3. Dulziana 8th'
4th octave 4 ′
5. Hollow flute 4 ′
6th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
7th octave 2 ′
8th. Mixture IV-V 2 ′ R.
9. Trumpet 8th'
II Swell C – a 3
12. Dumped 16 ′
13. Horn principal 08th'
14th Concert flute 08th' N
15th Violon 08th'
16. Reed flute 08th'
17th Aeoline 08th'
18th Vox celeste 08th'
19th Principal 04 ′
20th Night horn 04 ′
21st Nasat 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
22nd Picolo 02 ′
23. Cymbal III-IV 01' R.
24. oboe 08th'
26th Tremulant
Pedals C – f 1
27. Pedestal 32 ′ N
28. double bass 16 ′
29 Sub bass 16 ′
30th Soft bass (= No. 12) 16 ′
31. Octave bass 08th'
32. Covered bass 08th'
33. Violon cello (= No. 14) 08th'
34. Choral bass 04 ′
35. Back set IV 04 ′
36. trombone 16 ′
37. Hornoboe (= No. 24) 08th'
  • Couple
    • Normal coupling: II / I (No. 10)., I / P (No. 38), II / P (No. 39)
    • Super octave coupling: I / I (No. 11), II / II (No. 25), II / P (No. 40)

Remarks

N = new register (2009)
R = reconstructed register
  1. ↑ New register, in historical construction
  2. ↑ acoustic

Tower, bells

The 32 meter high rectangular tower is covered with a hipped roof. A portal with two doors in the tower facade leads to the entrance hall in front of the church. On the side of the portal, doors lead into the two connecting structures to the side wings. Above the canopy of the entrance portal are the three Golgotha crosses on the tower facade , a Latin cross in gold-plated ceramic tiles between two smaller crosses in dark stone. This is followed by three small windows one above the other and above four narrow sound openings at the level of the bell chamber , a dial is arranged between the two middle ones . A row of seven narrow openings forms the end, with a small balcony in front of the middle one .

Three bronze bells hang in the tower .

Casting year Caster Weight
(kg)		 Diameter (
cm)		 Height
(cm)		 Chime inscription
1956 Feldmann & Marschel 1850 140 118 cis' YOU SHOULD THANKS AND LEAVE STAHN.
1930 Franz Schilling 0 896 120 093 e ' A STRONG CASTLE IS OUR GOD, A GOOD DEEPER AND ARMS.
1956 Feldmann & Marschel 0700 105 088 fis' BE RECONCILIATED WITH GOD, 2 COR. 5-20

The middle and small bells also serve as striking mechanisms .

literature

  • Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin: Berlin and its buildings. Part VI. Sacred buildings. Berlin 1997.
  • Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephanie: Evangelical churches in Berlin. Berlin 1978.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Band Berlin. Munich / Berlin 2006.
  • Christine Goetz and Matthias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz: Churches Berlin Potsdam. Berlin 2003.
  • Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Berlin 1987.
  • The Parish Council of the Evangelical Church Community Siemensstadt: 100 years of Protestant worship 75 years of Christophoruskirche. Berlin 2006.
  • Bettina Held: The "Heimat" estate in Berlin-Siemensstadt and its churches. Berlin 2009.

Web links

Commons : Christophoruskirche (Berlin-Siemensstadt)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Spandau . ( Resistance in Berlin from 1933 to 1945 , German Resistance Memorial Center ) Berlin 1988, ISSN 0175-3592, pp. 101, 103, 106, 119–122.
  2. ↑ ev-gemeinde-siemensstadt.de: Christophoruskirche , accessed on March 28, 2020.
  3. ↑ More information about the organ on the website of the organ builder
  4. ↑ ( 2 Corinthians 5.20  EU )

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 29.5 ″  N , 13 ° 16 ′ 1 ″  E