Community centers and diaspora chapels by Otto Bartning
The following types of emergency churches , which were built in Germany between 1949 and 1953 as part of a second aid program, are referred to as community centers and diaspora chapels by the architect Otto Bartning .
Concept of serial churches
The basic idea (as with the emergency churches of the first program) consisted of building a prefabricated, self-supporting structure made of wood. The individual design resulted from the practical participation of the municipalities in the construction as well as from the partial use of locally available different building materials to complete the building. A total of 19 community centers and 33 diaspora chapels were built with simple and inexpensive means.
Implementation of the program
In contrast to the emergency churches, which were mainly built in destroyed cities in the immediate post-war period to replace missing churches, the community centers and diaspora chapels were intended for Protestant communities that had emerged in predominantly Catholic areas of Germany as a result of the influx of war refugees. (Hence the use of the term diaspora .) The program was funded by the aid organization of the Evangelical Churches in Germany from international donations. The communities had to raise the property and its development; a financial contribution could be reduced through voluntary auxiliary services.
Most of the community centers and diaspora chapels that were built are still preserved today and are enjoying increasing esteem as architectural monuments .
Community center (also referred to as "emergency church type D")
The floor plan of the community center with 15.90 m × 13.20 m is almost square. The church hall, consisting of a central room with adjoining “side aisles” and a podium for singers, offers around 250–280 seats. The sacristy and other ancillary rooms are located at the rear of the community center . From the outside, the raised component with a hipped roof that covers the central area of the church hall is particularly noticeable. A porch with a monopitch roof is arranged around the central area. In the axis of the building there is an open bell carrier with a cross on the pent roof. The small bell can / could be rung by hand from the interior.
The community center has a circumferential, articulated ribbon of windows between the hipped roof and the pent roof as the only indirect light. White-painted fiber cement panels are hung into the wooden stud construction of the walls, which is visible from both the outside and the inside .
The visitor enters the community center through one of the two main entrances with vestibules, which are arranged on the right and left on the front. The inside visible wooden supports supporting the hipped roof and the lower pent roof at the side divide the interior into a central area and "aisles". The open roof structure is provided with wooden cladding. On the altar wall, the altar stands on a pedestal in front of a niche with wooden folding shutters, in which it can be locked during community events. A pulpit is also provided on the platform. The singing podium with the organ on the opposite side can be used for events. The church hall is furnished with wooden benches for worship . Additional folding tables for community events and other items of equipment that were not included in the scope of delivery of the serial community center could be ordered by the communities.
Design history
The actual design by Bartnings envisaged a community center with an attached parsonage at the rear. A boiler room was planned; above the parish apartment and a room for the parish nurse with direct access to the parish center. Many parishes decided against the parish apartment for reasons of cost or because of the building site, had the amount paid out in order to then plan a separate parsonage. Furthermore, the congregations that had opted for a community center missed a separable hall in daily use, as it is in the Bartnings emergency churches under the organ loft. In addition, the willingness to donate abroad declined faster than expected.
That is why the central office of the Evangelical Relief Organization decided to commission Bartning to reduce the size of the community center. Due to the changed conditions and the desire to enable as many other diaspora communities as possible to build rooms for worship and community work, a new design by Bartnings named Diaspora Chapel was created, which replaced the community center. The communities that opted for a community center after the aid program was changed had to pay the difference themselves. A total of 19 community centers were built between 1949 and 1951.
Diaspora Chapel
The diaspora chapel was built over a rectangular floor plan measuring 11.30 m × 14.47 m. The interior is divided into a church hall with 150–160 seats and a smaller hall with 40–50 seats, which can be separated by folding walls. In the back of the building are the sacristy and another adjoining room.
From the outside, the building blends in with the surrounding development with a simple saddle roof that merges into a towing roof at the front . As a chapel, the building can be recognized by its cross on the roof turret for the bell. The 2.70 m high outer walls, made of locally available materials, enclose the chapel on three sides. The front consists of a boarded wooden stand construction on which the main entrances are to the right and left. The two triangular gable fields, structured in the rhythm of the wooden stand construction, are glazed for indirect lighting. The small community hall is lit through a narrow, structured window band.
You enter the church via one of the entrances through the vestibule and notice the set wooden post construction for the roof truss. The roof structure is provided with wooden cladding. The altar stands on a pedestal in front of the paneled altar wall and can be closed with wooden shutters in the altar niche during community events. A pulpit is also provided on the platform. The church hall had wooden benches for the service. Additional folding tables for community events as well as other items of equipment that were not included in the scope of delivery of the serial diaspora chapel could be ordered by the communities. Between 1950 and 1953 a total of 33 diaspora chapels were built.
Locations
Community centers
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Diaspora chapels
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Follow-up buildings
In the course of the emergency church programs, Bartning designed another series of even smaller chapels with approx. 95 seats, called “House of the Church”. Together with other small special structures, five demonstrably were built between 1950 and 1952.
Two of these buildings of the type "House of the Church" were built during the uranium mining period in the early 1950s in the western Ore Mountains towns of Johanngeorgenstadt and Oberschlema . The building in Johanngeorgenstadt was built in a mining settlement and is now used as a Christian leisure home. The building in Oberschlema was a temporary solution after the previous church could no longer be used due to subsidence phenomena. The wooden chapel was moved twice and has served as a church in the Auer districts of Auerhammer and Neudörfel since 1960 . It is the only structure of its type that has survived and is used as a church.
The Söderblom -Haus in Sassnitz of the type house of the church , inaugurated on the 1st of Advent 1951, was destroyed to the ground by a fire in the night of June 15, 2018.
See also
literature
- Jürgen Bredow, Helmut Lerch: Materials for the work of the architect Otto Bartning . Verlag the example Darmstadt 1983, ISBN 3-923974-00-0
- Rev. J. Diener: 40 years Ascheberg Chapel of Grace. Festschrift for the anniversary on the 3rd Advent in 1990 . Self-published by Ev. Kg.Ascheberg.
- Frauke Kohnert: 50 years of the Otto Bartning church program - Documentation of the 48 community centers and diaspora chapels . Developed at the Trier University of Applied Sciences as part of a project, self-published in 2000.
Web links
- Internet pages of the Otto Bartning-Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kirchenbau eV (OBAK)
- Map of the Bartningkirchen in Germany