Christ Church (Wuppertal-Barmen)
The Christ Church is a Protestant church in Wuppertal - Barmen . The first building of the Christ Church was built between 1885 and 1887 as the third church in the Unterbarmen district of Barmen .
The first construction
In his testamentary disposition, the Barmer manufacturer Ludwig Ringel left 400,000 gold marks for the construction of a church, which was to be called the Christ Church , to the United Evangelical Community of Unterbarmen . The presbytery of the congregation blessed 1883-84 a competition; Ringel's testament was taken from the demand for a “stately” church made of rubble stones, which should be suitable for evangelical preaching services and embody a “dignified simplicity”. In addition, a prominent tower was desired, as the selected building site on what was then Dörnerbrückenstrasse was in a rather inconspicuous place in terms of urban planning. Among the 74 entries in the competition, the Bremen architect Carl Bummerstedt prevailed against his competitors, Christoph Hehl received a second prize. The construction was carried out by the company Bummerstedt & Berger , Bremen / Wiesbaden, which later also built the Gemarker church . The foundation stone was laid on September 25th, 1885, and on November 10th, 1887, the Christ Church under Mercy was handed over to the community. The 75 meter high church tower was Barmen's tallest building at the time and had a lasting impact on the cityscape.
The north-east facing church building was 42 meters long and offered space for around 1050 people. The three-aisled neo - Gothic building followed the plan of a Latin cross and had the tower in front of the facade, which is typical of the Protestant churches in Wuppertal. Grauwacke was used for the masonry , the dividing parts were made of yellowish sandstone, the same materials that Johannes Otzen later chose for the Elberfeld cemetery church . Two small stair towers on the outer west facade led to the galleries that surrounded the nave on three sides, the cross arms were completely vaulted with galleries. The pulpit was on the left side of the five-eight choir, which was raised by two steps and in the middle of which was an altar. The organ was on the back of the tower above the entrance to the church room.
Floor plan of the old church
Design sketch by Carl Bummerstedt
Unexecuted draft by Christoph Hehl
Large parts of Barmens were destroyed on the night of May 30, 1943 during the air raids on Wuppertal . The Unterbarmer Christ Church also burned down to the outer walls. After the Second World War, the parish did not have any financial means for rebuilding , so the presbytery decided to demolish the church. The city of Wuppertal committed to assuming the demolition costs, and in 1955 the rubble was finally removed.
The new Building
After the United Evangelical Congregation Unterbarmen was divided into four parishes at the beginning of the 1960s, the presbytery of the United Evangelical Congregation Unterbarmen-Ost decided to set up a community center on the site of the former Christ Church in August 1968. Construction work began the following year, in 1972 the shell was completed, and on September 16, 1973 the Christ Church Community Center was opened. The parishes of Unterbarmen Mitte, West and Ost reunited on July 1st, 2006 to form the United Evangelical Parish of Unterbarmen. In the course of the congregation merger, the Christ Church was given up as a preaching site at the beginning of 2008. Then the joint project House of the Generations of the parish, church district (family education center) and city of Wuppertal (District Social Service 6) began with offers to support the people in the valley axis. As part of the “Youth Church” model project, which was the first in the Rhineland, youth services were held twice a month.
The community center was finally closed in April 2013. The House of Generations project has been discontinued. The building, which is currently vacant (as of April 2017), is to be sold.
literature
- Werner Franzen: Worship sites in transition. Evangelical church building in the Rhineland 1860–1914 (= writings of the archives of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. No. 34). Archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-930250-47-0 (At the same time: Duisburg, University, dissertation, 2002), online ( Memento from December 11, 2005 in the Internet Archive ).
- Peter Herkenrath: 140 years of history of the United Evangelical Congregation Unterbarmen 1822–1962. Presbytery of the United Evangelical Congregation, Wuppertal-Unterbarmen 1963.
- Sigrid Lekebusch: Unterbarmer community history. 1964-1997. United Evangelical Congregation, Wuppertal-Unterbarmen 1997, ISBN 3-00-001429-2 .
- Sigrid Lekebusch, Florian Speer (eds.): Churches and places of worship in Barmen (= churches and places of worship in Wuppertal. Vol. 2 = Contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Vol. 43). Schmidt, Neustadt (Aisch) 2008, ISBN 978-3-87707-721-4 .
- Moritz Schreiner: History of the United Evangelical Community of Unterbarmen from 1872 to 1897. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the community. Wiemann, Barmen 1897
- Hermann Thümmel: History of the United Evangelical Congregation Unterbarmen from 1822 to 1872. Langewiesche, Barmen 1872
- Hermann Thümmel, Moritz Schreiner, Hugo van den Bruck: History of the United Evangelical Congregation Unterbarmen from the years 1822-1922. West German printing works, Barmen 1922.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christ Church: Center on Oberdörnen is for sale Westdeutsche Zeitung . Retrieved April 13, 2017.
Coordinates: 51 ° 16 ′ 12 " N , 7 ° 11 ′ 32" E