Protestant Church Solingen-Wald

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Evangelical Church in Solingen-Wald

The Protestant Church Solingen-Wald , or Walder Church for short , is a classicist church building with a Romanesque west tower in Solingen . It is located in the center of the Wald district on Walder Kirchplatz. The tower of the Walder Church is the oldest surviving structure in Solingen, built around 1150.

history

The first church

The first mention of a church in Wald can be found in a document dated May 3, 1019 by the Archbishop of Cologne , Heribert of Cologne , in which he gave the Deutz Abbey , which he founded in 1002/1003, as well as many other donations, the possession of “ Fronhof und Kirche named Wald ” (curtim et ecclesiam que Walda vocatur) confirmed. This first forest church was probably a separate church in the form of a wooden hall building.

The Romanesque Church

In its place, the Deutz Abbey had a stone Romanesque basilica built , probably in the 12th century (around 1150) , of which only the tower has been preserved. The shape of this church can only be deduced today from an outline drawing by the Solingen surveyor Johann Peter Stamm from 1769. The associated parish forest (parrochia Walde) is mentioned for the first time in 1135 in a document from the Archbishop of Cologne, Bruno II . The church was originally dedicated to John the Baptist ; only in 1420 does Saint Sebastian appear as patron saint .

Around 1210, the Deutz abbot transferred the parish church to the Gräfrath monastery . In 1591 the Walder pastor Winand Sartorius switched to the Reformed Confession. Since then, the church has been used by the Reformed community; The building remained in the property of the Catholic monastery until the secularization in 1803. After the tower spire burned down after a lightning strike in 1712, the tower was given today's baroque dome in the 18th century. Its copper cover had to be delivered during the First World War in 1917 and was replaced by a slate cover. In 1973 the tower got a copper roof again.

The classical church

Due to the increasing dilapidation of the Romanesque nave, there were already considerations for a new building in 1780, but this was not realized due to the complicated ownership structure. In 1804 parts of the vault collapsed, so that the church could no longer be used and the services had to be moved to a wooden emergency church. The Romanesque church was demolished in 1816. Thanks to financial support from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the foundation stone for a new building was laid on August 18, 1818. The design came from Adolph von Vagedes , who was also the site manager. On May 5, 1820, however, the barrel vault of the new building collapsed again. Thereupon Vagedes was withdrawn from the project by the Oberbaudeputation Berlin. After the redesign by the Prussian building inspector Friedrich Felderhoff, today's church was inaugurated on Reformation Day in 1824 and completed the following year under Felderhoff's direction. It was the first church to be built in the Rhineland after the Napoleonic period. In connection with the new building, the dilapidated tower was also renovated and received the now visible corner cuboid and the classicistic west portal.

In the course of the Prussian Union in 1830, the Lutheran and Reformed congregations united to form the "Union of the Evangelical Church Community in Wald". In 1854 the church got a wooden coffered ceiling . In 1934/35 it was thoroughly repaired under the direction of the Walder architects Baurmann and Buschmann. Between 1965 and 1968 the entire interior of the church was radically changed with the aim of a "restoring redesign". The character of the classicist interior, one of the highest quality of its kind in the Bergisches Land , was to be "further developed" in the form of "modern forms", including a lighting concept planned by the lighting designer Johannes Dinnebier . Numerous features from the 19th century such as the pulpit altar from 1895, the coffered ceiling and the stained glass windows were removed. Since then, the furnishings have been determined by modern objects such as altar table, pulpit, baptismal font and hanging cross. The baptismal font was moved to the center of the church in 2005.

In the early 1990s the church received a new slate roof. In 1999, due to damage caused by traffic passing the church, it became necessary to completely renovate the outer facade. In order to support the parish with the costs of over one million D-Marks, the monument foundation Walder Kirche e. V. founded as a support association for the preservation of the church, which since then has contributed significantly to the maintenance costs. In 2001 the entire exterior plaster and in 2004 the paint was renewed.

Today the Protestant church with its Romanesque west tower is the focal point and symbol of the Wald district .

Building description

tower

Bell storey of the tower

The 41-meter-high, three-story, unadorned tower was a floor area of 8.80 m × 9.90 m from greywacke - rubble built, presumably from quarries in Ittertal come. The double-shell masonry, filled with lumps of stone and lime mortar, is over 2 meters thick on the ground floor (2.88 m at the thickest point) and around one meter thick on the top floor. A small flight of stairs leads up from the church square to the classical portal in the west wall with a triangular gable supported by volutes . The room on the ground floor, which was originally connected to the nave by an arch and presumably served as a baptistery, was set up in 1926 as a memorial for those who fell in the First World War based on designs by the Düsseldorf sculptor Siegfried Meinardus . Above the passage to the nave there is a high relief of a fallen soldier raised by Christ, the walls have marble tablets with the names of the fallen. Inside the wall on the north side, a three-flight U-shaped staircase leads to the first floor. It is illuminated by a few narrow slits of light. The square room on the first floor also has only one light slit and, like the ground floor room, a groined vault . It was originally also open to the nave and probably served as the patronage chapel . Long used as a storage room, the tower room was converted into an event and exhibition room in 2000. From there a staircase leads through the wall on the south side to the top or bell-shaped floor. It is the only one with windows; On each of the four sides there are two window openings , each divided by a central column with a chalice capital , which also serve as sound openings for the bells. The original wooden belfry was replaced by an iron one in 1919.

Nave

Interior, view of the altar

The nave built onto the Romanesque tower in the classicist style of the Karl Friedrich Schinkel school has the shape of a squat Greek cross , which is extended to the west by the tower and to the east by a semicircular apse. A ledge running around the outside at half height marks the gallery. The transept walls in the north and south are closed off by flat triangular gables. Portals also crowned with triangular gables are located in the middle of the transept walls. The interior of the church, which has been described as one of the “most beautiful classicist buildings in Germany”, is kept entirely in white except for the light yellow wall surfaces and is surrounded all around by galleries supported by fluted columns with Ionic capitals; only the semicircle of the six columns in the choir has Corinthian capitals. The position of the pillars is repeated on the mezzanine floor, where high arched windows illuminate the church. Smaller rectangular windows are located on the north and south side of the ground floor on both sides of the entrances.

Organs

In 1824 a house organ was donated to the church as the first organ . It was not until 1859 that it received a large church organ from the Leichel brothers from Duisburg, which was replaced in 1909 by a new organ by Eberhard Friedrich Walcker (Ludwigsburg). After a renovation in 1952, Willi Peter (Cologne) created a new “neo-baroque” organ in 1969, into which many of the old pipes were built. Between 1995 and 2001, Matthias Wagner (Obrigheim, Pfalz) built a single-manual organ with 16 registers as an interim organ on site on the west gallery, which was completed in 1997 and is now used as a choir organ, and then today's large organ, also under reuse of pipe material from the previous instruments. The instrument has 43 stops on three manuals and a pedal . The registers of the 4th manual are transmissions from the main work. The playing and stop actions are mechanical.

I main work C–
01. Bourdon 16 ′
02. Principal 08th'
03. Flauto harmonique 08th'
04th violoncello 08th'
05. Gemshorn 08th'
06th Octave 04 ′
07th Idleness 04 ′
08th. Quint 03 ′
09. Octave 02 ′
10. Mixture IV
11. Cornet V 08th'
12. Trumpets 08th'
13. Clairon 04 ′
II Swell C–
14th Idleness 8th'
15th Violin principal 8th'
16. Viola da gamba 8th'
17th Voix céleste 8th'
18th Octav piano 4 ′
19th Slack travers 4 ′
20th Quint 3 ′
21st quart 2 ′
22nd third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
23. Quint minor 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
24. Mixture III
25th Trumpets 8th'
26th Cromorne 8th'
27. Basson / Hautbois 0 8th'
28. Vox humana 8th'
tremolo
III Echowerk C–
29 Bourdon 8th'
30th Salicional 8th'
31. Flauto dolce 0 4 ′
32. Harmonica 4 ′
33. Flautino 2 ′
34. Nasard II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
35. Clarinet 8th'
tremolo
IV Bombarde C–
36. Cornet V (= No. 11) 8th'
37. Trumpet (= No. 12) 8th'
38. Clairon (= No. 13) 4 ′
Pedal C–
39. Grand Bourdon 32 ′
40. Principal bass 16 ′
41. Sub bass 16 ′
42. Octavbass 08th'
43. Baryton 08th'
44. Alto 04 ′
45. Contrabombarde 0 32 ′
46. Bombard 16 ′
  • Pairing :
    • Normal coupling: II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P, IV / P
    • Sub-octave coupling: II / I
  • Secondary register: bird's voice

Bells

The church's bell, consisting of three bronze bells, was melted down during the First World War and replaced in 1919 by today's ringing made of four iron bells with a total weight of 6414 kg:

Surname Weight Chime Caster Casting year
1. Luther bell 2590 kg des¹ Schilling and Lattermann 1919
2. Hindenburg bell 1830 kg it¹ Schilling and Lattermann 1919
3. Bismarck Bell 1235 kg f¹ Schilling and Lattermann 1919
4. Klarenbach bell 759 kg as¹ Schilling and Lattermann 1919

Motif: "Filled out des¹-major triad"

Monument protection

On January 22, 1985, the Walder Church was entered as a monument in the list of monuments of the city of Solingen. In addition, the center of Wald with the area around the church is protected as a monument area.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Document printed in Erich Wisplinghoff : Rheinisches Urkundenbuch. Older documents up to 1100 , Volume 1: Aachen – Deutz, Peter Hanstein-Verlag, Bonn 1972, No. 131, pp. 190–195; Digitized at the University and State Library Bonn. As far as we know today, the document, which has only survived in later copies, is a forgery from the middle of the 12th century.
  2. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./The beginnings around 900
  3. ^ Drawing printed in: Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city. Volume II: From 1700 to the middle of the 19th century. Walter Braun Verlag, Duisburg 1972, p. 94. Attempted reconstruction of the church in: Andreas Sassen / Claudia Sassen: A forgotten monument - the Romanesque basilica in forest. In: Romerike Berge. Journal for the Bergisches Land 57 (2007), issue 3, pp. 13-18.
  4. ↑ Printed in: Theodor Joseph Lacomblet : Document book for the history of the Lower Rhine […] , Volume I: From the year 779 to 1200 inclusive. Düsseldorf 1840, No. 321 (pp. 213-214); Digitized at the University and State Library Bonn
  5. ^ Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city. Volume I: From the beginning to the end of the 17th century. Walter Braun Verlag, Duisburg 1973, pp. 20, 126.
  6. ↑ Notarized by Archbishop Dietrich I of Cologne between 1209 and 1212; Document printed by Theodor Joseph Lacomblet : Document book for the history of the Lower Rhine […] , Volume II: From the year 1201 to 1300 inclusive. Düsseldorf 1846, No. 56, pp. 30-31; Digitized at the University and State Library Bonn
  7. ^ Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city. Volume I: From the beginning to the end of the 17th century. Walter Braun Verlag, Duisburg 1973, p. 176.
  8. ↑ a b c d e Evangelical Church of Wald: Brief Church History (PDF, 1.5 MB)
  9. ↑ a b c d Evangelical Church Wald on www.zeitspurensuche.de
  10. ↑ http://www.denkmalstiftung-walder-kirche.de/projekte/projekte.html
  11. ↑ a b Andreas Sassen / Claudia Sassen: A forgotten monument - the Romanesque basilica in forest. In: Romerike Berge. Journal for the Bergisches Land 57 (2007), issue 3, p. 13.
  12. ^ History of the community on the website of the Evangelical Community of Wald
  13. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./Theological and art-historical details
  14. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./Infobrief 13 from summer 2006 (PDF, 1.4 MB)
  15. ↑ Jan Crummenerl: A tower looks back on 1000 years of history. Solinger Morgenpost from September 18, 2018
  16. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./ Monument Foundation
  17. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V.
  18. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./History
  19. ^ A b Andreas Sassen / Claudia Sassen: On the importance of the Romanesque church tower in forest. In: The home. Contributions to the history of Solingen and the Bergisches Land. Issue 23, 2007/08, pp. 4-9.
  20. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./tower room
  21. ↑ Monument Foundation Walder Church e. V./The organs of the Walder Church
  22. ^ Organ portrait on the website Kirchenmusik in Solingen ( Memento from March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ↑ List of architectural monuments in Solingen (PDF, 120 kB), p. 25, no. 900
  24. ^ The Solingen monument areas on the website of the city of Solingen - monument protection and cityscape maintenance

literature

  • Wolfgang Zimmermann: Adolph von Vagedes and his church buildings. JP Bachem, Cologne 1964 (Aachen building history studies 1) (also dissertation TH Aachen 1963)
  • Georg Dehio , Ernst Gall : Handbook of German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia, I. Rhineland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1967, p. 587f.
  • Matthias Gerschwitz: Right in the middle - the Protestant church in Solingen-Wald. Verlag Stadt Solingen City Archives, Solingen 2011. ISBN 978-3-92895-619-2 .

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 1 ″  N , 7 ° 2 ′ 29 ″  E