Donaucity Church

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Donaucity Church in the Donau City district of Vienna
Painting Noah's Ark next to the church on the embankment wall

The Donaucity-Kirche Christ, Hope of the World is a Roman Catholic church with the address Donau-City-Straße 2 in the Donau City district of Vienna's 22nd district, Donaustadt .

history

As part of the design of the young Donau City district in the 1990s, it was also decided to build a church building. A competition was organized among six recognized Austrian architects. The Viennese architect Heinz Tesar was selected by the jury because his project was able to exist independently of the high-rise buildings built all around.

On September 5, 1999, the foundation stone was laid by Auxiliary Bishop Helmut Krätzl . On November 26th, 2000, Christ the King Sunday of the Holy Year 2000 , the church was consecrated by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn . The Rectorate of the Donaucity Church was run by the Order of the Salvatorians until September 2016 ; responsible rector from October 1, 2016 was Dr. Ewald Huscava.

Since April 1, 2020, the Donaucity Church has formed the new common parish Maria Magdalena on the old Danube together with the communities of Bruckhaufen - St. Elisabeth and Kaisermühlen ; The parish vicar Dr. Ewald Huscava (also cathedral preacher to St. Stephan in Vienna).

architecture

The outer cladding is made of Styrian chrome steel, recognizable as a church only by a white cross and the adjacent steel frame for the 3 bells. Architecturally, the building was erected as a cross cuboid with the four upper corners cut out.

The dark-looking steel shell is perforated with numerous round openings that conform to a diagonal grid. The window openings are alternately large and small and thus break through the austerity of the overall picture. During the day they look like rays in the interior, at night the church shines brightly from the inside out.

The parish rooms can be reached by stairs and the courtyard from the outside without disturbing the silence of the church. The bare concrete walls were designed by children.

inside view

The interior is designed with birch wood. The atmosphere of the place is characterized by a lot of incidence of light in various forms. Seen from the inside, the room appears much larger than from the outside. The re-entrant upper corners of the cuboid create their own zones in the interior, the entrance area with vestibule, the tabernacle area, the baptismal font and the area with the Madonna and Child, which serves as a play area for small children during Sunday Mass and otherwise as a place of silence and prayer.

Furnishing

Baptismal font

The altar - like the baptismal font, ambo and tabernacle stele not made of wood, but granite - stands in the middle, the benches are arranged all around. The interior design is characterized by simple simplicity. The peculiarly curved window in the church ceiling indicates the wound on the side of Jesus through which his life flows, the mandorla on the front wall symbolizes the resurrection.

The distinctive Stations of the Cross on the side wall were screen printed from drawings by Heinz Tesar . The protest written in red in English (“Out with this sh * t, this is absolutely nothing”) is deliberately left as a “suggestion for reflection”, according to an explanatory notice.

The only concession to previous art is the Madonna, a copy of the Madonna from Gnadendorf near Hollabrunn .

There are three different light sources: large windows in the cut-out corners, many points of light through the round openings in the outer shell and a large gap in the shape of a heart wound on the ceiling. These different light sources ensure that every tiny ray of sunshine illuminates the interior and gives it a friendly atmosphere. In the altar cross itself there is a small window opening at the crossroads, which directs a ray of sunshine onto the tables of the Way of the Cross in the morning hours of Christ the King's Day.

Under the church there is a parish hall, the office, a foyer and several group rooms. These rooms are supplied with daylight through a small courtyard and are a meeting place for celebrations, parish coffee, meditations, crawling rounds, children's fair, theater, various exhibitions and all other events.

Awards

literature

  • Constantin Gegenhuber: Constructed prayers. Christian sacred architecture - new buildings in Austria from 1990 to 2011 . Pustet, Salzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7025-0632-2 , chap. Vienna-Donaustadt: Roman Catholic Church "Christ, Hope of the World" , p. 60-67 .
  • Heinz Tesar : Christ Hope of the World, Vienna. Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart / London 2002, ISBN 3-930698-42-0 .
  • Walter Zschokke : Vienna-Donaucity Catholic Church: Christ, hope of the world. Christian Richters (illustrator / photographer), series Kleine Kunstführer No. 2492, Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2nd edition 2003, ISBN 3-7954-6400-5 .

Web links

Commons : Donaucitykirche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 59.1 ″  N , 16 ° 24 ′ 55 ″  E