Don Bosco Church (Augsburg)

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Don Bosco Church from the west
Don Bosco Church from the southeast

The Don Bosco Church is a Catholic city parish church in the Wolfram and Herrenbachviertel district of Augsburg . It is dedicated to St. Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco .

Creation of the parish center

From 1960 to 1965 the parish church was built as part of the newly created parish center (including a student dormitory with a home church, parsonage, parish hall and gym, nurses' home, kindergarten and day care center) in the city district that grew rapidly after the Second World War. The parish church was built according to the plans of Thomas Wechs and his son Thomas Wechs jun. (1929-2012). The then bishop of Augsburg, Joseph Freundorfer , consecrated the parish church on October 7, 1962 - there was a certain time pressure, as the bishop stayed in Rome for a long time immediately after the opening of the Second Vatican Council on October 11.

Church building

The parish church was founded by Thomas Wechs and Thomas Wechs jun. Designed in the style of modernism or the late post-war modernism , whereby the concrete dome of the central building in particular is also assigned to the architectural style of brutalism .

The trademark of the Don Bosco Church are the two filigree, at least 69.5 meter high concrete towers, which dominated the silhouette of the Herrenbachviertel until the construction of the neighboring Schwabencenter with its almost as high (64 m) towering high-rise buildings.

The striking central building itself is spanned by an 18 meter high reinforced concrete dome, which has a diameter of 30 meters. In its light-flooded center, a dove hovers as a symbol of the Holy Spirit . In the bluish choir window, God the Father appears in the form of the burning bush . Jesus Christ is present in the mighty cross that hangs over the altar.

The dome rosette and the relief above the main portal were designed by Blasius Gerg . The choir window and the mosaic in the Marienkapelle were designed by the Augsburg painter Georg Bernhard (* 1929).

The entire parish center has been a listed building since April 1997.

local community

The congregation was led by Father Martin Söll SDB (1911–1981) for two decades. Following the tradition of the order, Father Söll placed great emphasis on youth work. After his death, his brother, Father Georg Söll SDB, took over the pastoral office temporarily until 1982.

In January 2005 the parish community was established with St. Wolfgang in neighboring Spickel . Today the two parishes comprise almost 4,200 Catholics, of which almost 3,000 belong to the Don Bosco Church.

In 2014, the care of the parish by the Salesian Order ended .

literature

  • Catholic parish office Don Bosco: City parish church Don Bosco Augsburg. Festschrift for the inauguration in 1962.
  • Parish community Don Bosco + St. Wolfgang: 50 years of Don Bosco Church. Festschrift and parish letter, 2012.

Web links

Commons : Don Bosco Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Diocese of Augsburg
  2. ↑ The groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 3, 1960, and the foundation stone was consecrated on May 7, 1961 by Provincial Father Alois Leinfelder SDB. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on July 21, 1961. (Festschrift 1962, p. 8ff.)
  3. ↑ See obituary notice in the Augsburger Allgemeine from September 19, 2012.
  4. ↑ Festschrift 1962, p. 12
  5. ↑ Elisabeth Schwiontek: Back to concrete! Brutalist architecture. In: goethe.de. Goethe Institute. V. , Munich, January 2017, accessed on August 23, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Height information according to the Statistical Yearbook of the City of Augsburg 2009 ( Memento from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.8 MB).
  7. ↑ Festschrift 2012, p. 31.
  8. ↑ Festschrift 2012, p. 34.
  9. ↑ As of March 2011. Festschrift 2012, p. 34.

Coordinates: 48 ° 21 '27 "  N , 10 ° 55' 34.2"  E