The aa-kerk
| The aa-kerk | |
|---|---|
 The Der Aa-kerk |
|
| Data | |
| place | Groningen |
| Construction year | 1425-1492 |
| height | 76 m |
| Floor space | 1155 m² |
| Coordinates | 53 ° 12 '59 " N , 6 ° 33' 44" E |
The Aa-kerk , also called the A-kerk , is a church building in the center of the city of Groningen . Along with the Martinikerk, it is the most important preserved medieval church building in the city. Seen from the fish market , the church, located at Akerkhof , towers high above the Korenbeurs (grain exchange).
Surname
There is some confusion over the exact name of the church, which most locals know as A-kerk . Originally it was called the Church of Our Lady of the Aa . After the Reformation the church had different names: Ter Aa-kerk, Dra-kerk, Der Aa-kerk and A-kerk. After the restoration of the church, which was completed in 1982, it was decided to officially set the name to "Der Aa-Kerk". The name refers to the nearby Drentsche Aa , which is part of the Diepenring, the Groningen canal belt . The area around the church, especially the road from the Aa to the Grote Markt , is probably the oldest part of Groningen. Not everyone considers the prefix der to be an authentic part of the name. According to Jan van den Broek is the area, for example in the Akercke , van der Akercke or totter Akercke the solidified dating the female article the and the speaking of the Aa-Kerk therefore grammatically incorrect.
Dimensions
The Der Aa-kerk has a choir , a nave and a sacristy . The choir is 500 m² (20 × 25 meters), the nave 625 m² (25 × 25) and the sacristy 30 m², a total of 1155 square meters. The width of the church is 25 meters and the length of the choir and nave together 50 meters, but the total length of the church (including the tower) is 60 meters. The height of the tower of the Aa-kerk is 76 meters, the height of the vaults 26 meters.
history
middle Ages
Originally there was a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas and Mary here . Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of seamen who docked their ships nearby. The chapel received the status of parish and the name Our Lady of the Aa in 1247 .
Groningen was created in two "gaps" or quarters. A core was located around the Prefectural Court and the Walburgkerk, which was geared towards government and agriculture. The other core was around the Aa-kerk and was home to fishermen and traders. This second core is said to have originally been Frisian . According to tradition, until the 16th century there was a picture of Charlemagne with a signature referring to the Frisian freedom he had granted .
The chapel was rebuilt several times until a cruciform church made of bricks stood there in the 15th century (1425–1495) . The church was then changed several times as a result of damage from war (Reformation, Bommen Berend ) and lightning strike (1671) and the repairs that were subsequently required.
Other medieval churches are the Pelstergasthuiskerk and the Pepergasthuiskerk . Examples of demolished medieval church buildings in the city are the Sint-Walburgkerk and the Broerkerk .
Three consecutive towers
Pictures of the siege by Bommen Berend in 1672 show that the Der Aa-kerk, which was within range of the Munster canons, has lost its spire . However, this was not due to the bombardment, but to a storm in 1671 that also hit the Martini tower, which, however, was saved from complete destruction. After the liberation a new wooden spire was built.
On April 23, 1710, the tower collapsed spontaneously. There were two deaths to mourn. The mayor of Frankfurt Zacharias von Uffenbach, who was visiting Groningen, wrote in his diary that while he was enjoying the view from the Martini tower, he suddenly noticed that the Aa-kerk tower had disappeared:
“A tremendous shout filled the air. The women sit on the ruins of the church, weeping like the Israelis in the past by the watercourses of Babylon "
In 1711 the construction of a new tower began. The ship was shortened for this. The tower received three baroque bells in 1714, cast by J. Crans uit Enckhuysen . They sound in the pitches b 0 , d 1 and f 1 , the diameters are in the same order: 175 cm (3340 kg), 136 cm (1640 kg) and 112 cm (870 kg). The church was restored several times in the 20th century, most recently in 1982.
20th century
In the years after the war, the number of believers in Groningen fell sharply, as a result of which the building became increasingly neglected. The choir was even used as a bicycle parking lot for several years.
Like most church towers , the tower had been owned by the government since the beginning of the 19th century and was therefore relatively well maintained.
During a major restoration of the church and tower in 1982, the tower's color scheme, soft gray and blue, was noticeably changed. The architects decided on a historical reconstruction and had parts of the tower painted ocher yellow.
The building is no longer used as a church, but primarily for concerts, conferences and other events, such as the Noorderlicht photo festival .
Organs
The organ by Arp Schnitger dates back to 1702 and has been in the Der Aa-kerk since 1815, but had at least three predecessors. Archive files show that the church already had an organ in 1475 and that a contract for the renewal of the instrument was concluded with the organ builder Andreas de Mare in 1558 . It is not known whether the two cases are the same organ. It is possible that Theodor Faber , who was commissioned to make a new organ in 1654, reworked parts of the old instrument in the (no longer existing) organ that he built in 1658 for the Hervormde Kerk in Coevorden .
- Faber hagberry organ
The choice fell on Faber because the bailiff was impressed by the organ (which still exists), which this self-taught person had built for the Jacobuskerk in Zeerijp . When he died in 1659, his organ was not yet finished, and so the Amsterdam organ builder JG van Hagerbeer finally completed the instrument. It was inaugurated in 1667 but only worked for four years. It was lost on May 1, 1671, when the church tower caught fire from a lightning strike and fell on the organ.
- First Schnitger organ
It was then Arp Schnitger who delivered a new organ in 1697, his largest in the Netherlands, but this too did not last long. When the tower collapsed in 1710, it was lost.
- Second Schnitger organ
After the church had existed for a hundred years without an organ, King Wilhelm I allowed another Schnitger organ , the one from 1702 from the Broerkerk , to be implemented. This happened in 1815 through JW Timpe , who had to adapt it to the situation in Der Aa-kerk. Timpe made changes again in 1830: He replaced the breastwork with a new upperwork. In 1857 P. van Oeckelen was given the task of drastically rebuilding the organ, expanding the main work from nine to thirteen registers .
On October 14, 2011, the organ was put back into use after years of restoration. Like the church, it is a Rijksmonument .
- Transept organ
In addition to the Schnitger organ, the Der Aa-kerk still has the (non-functioning) "Bolswarder organ" from 1539. This was possibly built by Hermann Raphael Rodensteen for the Martinikerk in Bolsward and moved to the Broerekerk in 1635 . After various changes and moves, it ended up in the Martinikerk in Groningen . When the Aa-kerk was being restored, mounting holes for an organ were discovered in the southern nave. So there must have been a small organ there. They started looking for a suitable instrument, which has been hanging in Der Aa-kerk since 1991. For the time being it is an empty organ case with no internal work, but there are plans to reconstruct the organ.
photos
The Aa-kerk in 1710
The Aa-kerk seen from the fish market, with the predecessor of today's Korenbeurs (grain exchange, before 1880)
The Aa-kerk tower, seen from the location of the A (2004)
Schnitger organ keyboard
Bolsward organ
The look up
Overview choir
The Aa-kerk sacristy, built after 1351, probably in the 15th century
Anecdotes
- On request, the Groninger Bach Commission of the writer wrote Belcampo in 1985 his version of the collapse of the tower of the Der Aa-kerk in 1710. According to the story Bach in Groningen caused the young Johann Sebastian Bach the collapse of the tower when he secretly on the Schnitgerorgel played. He played on and on without interruption until the tower finally collapsed due to this musical violence.
- The World Press Photo exhibitions have been held in Der Aa-kerk for many years .
- Since 2009 Der Aa-kerk has been renamed a “Church of Science” every June during De Nacht van Kunst & Wetenschap . The church is then filled with science and art from Science LinX , a department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Groningen , which aims to make the exact sciences and technology more popular and to interest young people in these subject areas.
Web links
Notes and evidence
- ↑ Jan van den Broek: Groningen, een stad apart. Over het verleden van een peculiar city (1000–1600) . Van Gorcum, Assen 2007, ISBN 978-90-232-4323-6 , p. 362, note 125.
- ↑ Geleerd boekenbezit in Groningen in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw
- ↑ a b Informatie Stichting Der Aa-kerk Groningen