Christ Church (Görlitz)

Christ Church
	View from Diesterwegplatz to the Christ Church
Construction time:	1937-1938
Inauguration:	June 17, 1938
Architect :	Otto Bartning
Location:	51 ° 8 '35.2 " N , 14 ° 56' 33.1" E Coordinates: 51 ° 8 '35.2 " N , 14 ° 56' 33.1" E
Address:	Diesterwegplatz ; Goerlitz ; Saxony , Germany
Purpose:	evangelical church
Local community:	Christ parish
Regional Church :	Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia

The Christ Church is a Protestant church in the Görlitz district of Rauschwalde . The church was built at the end of the 1930s and is located to the southwest, a little set back on Diesterwegplatz.

history

The place Rauschwalde was incorporated into Görlitz in 1925. Until the church was built, Rauschwalde did not have its own church. Rauschwalde was once parish after Jauernick . With the completion of the Church of the Redeemer in Kunnerwitz, Rauschwalde moved to the parish of Kunnerwitz .

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Rauschwalde was already home to around 800 residents of Protestant denomination. With increasing industrialization and the opening of the marshalling yard and railway depot in Schlauroth in the north, the number of Protestant parishioners increased by a further 1,500 members.

Even before 1914 there were first efforts to build a church of their own. In 1914 the independent Protestant parish of Rauschwalde was founded. A year earlier, the Rauschwalder Friedhof on the outskirts was consecrated. The cemetery chapel was also available to the new congregation for services. In 1934 the cemetery chapel was enlarged and a bell tower was added. However, the chapel was too small and too remote for the community. The character of a burial church also continued to encourage the desire to have a church of its own.

The first building designs were made between 1925 and 1928, they came from the Breslau architect Hermann Wahlich . The church building association was founded in 1935. As early as March 30 of the previous year, it was decided to establish a church building fund, which was supposed to provide the basic financing for the planned building. After Wahlich's death, the church building association won the architect Otto Bartning to carry out the construction. Bartning realized his own design for the church building.

On May 3, 1937, the building application was submitted to the local police. A day later, a new regulation of the Air Protection Act came into force. The regulation provided for an air raid shelter for new buildings . After discussions between the architect, the parish and the authorities, an agreement was reached on a smaller air raid shelter for 100 people. The foundation stone was finally laid on June 10, 1937 . The farmer Gustav Richter donated the building site at Diesterwegplatz to the parish between 1908 and 1910 with the condition that the new church should be built here.

In November 1937 a limit on the amount of steel came into force. The planned church building exceeded this upper limit, but at this point the steel was already installed in the church tower foundation. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on September 11, 1937 . The church was consecrated on June 17, 1938. In 1935 the parish council unanimously agreed on the name Christ Church . The name probably came from a suggestion from a poor old widow from Poznan.

Building

A special feature of the church is that the basilica nave is not oriented in an east-west direction, but in a north-south axis. The church building thus blended into the open landscape and continued to offer an unobstructed view of the state crown . The construction of Diesterwegplatz was thus also completed towards the west. On the southeast side of the nave, the square bell tower with a pointed helmet connects. The rear west facade is windowless. The east facade has an open vestibule to which a six-step staircase leads. The stairs were necessary because of the air raid shelter in the basement, which could not be completely buried in the ground for reasons of cost.

The vestibule is covered by a monopitch roof, above which a narrow, simple ribbon of windows stretches across the width of the vestibule. The windows are at the level of the galleries. The wider ribbon of windows in the upper storey also ensures sufficient light in the interior. The brickwork was given a trowel plaster on the outside at the client's request . In the interior, however, the brickwork is only painted white. The interior is kept simple. The dark wooden ceiling contrasts with the white walls. The church can accommodate 420 people.

A narrow, high window is let into the center of the north facade. The altar is slightly raised in front of the window . The ceramic font comes from Heinz Grunwald .

The planned tower clock with carillon could not be carried out until today for financial reasons.

For the retirement home next to the Christ Church, the artist Ingo Kühl created eight colored clay reliefs on the subject of Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (1997).

Web links

Commons : Christ Church (Görlitz) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Rauschwalde in the Digital Historical Directory of Saxony
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h The Christ Church Görlitz-Rauschwalde . kkvsol.net, archived from the original on April 13, 2012 ; Retrieved July 12, 2012 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Ernst-Heinz Lemper : Görlitz. A historical topography . 2nd Edition. Oettel-Verlag, Görlitz 2009, ISBN 3-932693-63-9 , p. 236 .
^ Dataset from the German National Library

[1] Rauschwalde in the Digital Historical Directory of Saxony

[Kirche-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h The Christ Church Görlitz-Rauschwalde . kkvsol.net, archived from the original on April 13, 2012 ; Retrieved July 12, 2012 .

[Lemper-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Ernst-Heinz Lemper : Görlitz. A historical topography . 2nd Edition. Oettel-Verlag, Görlitz 2009, ISBN 3-932693-63-9 , p. 236 .

[4] Dataset from the German National Library