Friedenskirche (Monheim-Baumberg)
The Peace Church is a 1968 to 1974 according to plans by Walter Maria conveyor in the style of brutalism church built in Monheim-Baumberg , Schellingstraße 13th
Building history
In the post-war years, Baumberg's population rose sharply, so that in the 1960s a spacious new building area was designed adjacent to the historic town center under the leadership of the union's own construction company “ Neue Heimat ”. The plans where u. a. the renowned Frankfurt architect Ernst May was involved, also envisaged a center for the Protestant community, which grew to around 3,000 members in the post-war years. In addition to the church, the center should also include staff apartments and a kindergarten. The location chosen was an area between the old town center and the new development area.
After an architectural competition, the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland decided on a design by the Swiss Walter Maria Förderer. In the early years he personally took care of the construction progress, but later left the supervision to his office and the Monheim architect Dietrich Mallwitz, who implemented the concept for the outbuildings largely independently.
After construction began in 1968, the first service was celebrated on May 9, 1971, and the facility was officially completed in 1974. Because of its external appearance, it was initially called a “bunker”, but in the eighties the church was named Friedenskirche .
The tower, which is reminiscent of a Swiss mountain, received three bells from the Eifel bell foundry in 1983 . In 2003 the concrete wall was finally opened, which shielded the church square from the south towards the settlement. The open forecourt, which is bordered by 13 spherical acacias, can be reached via a small bridge that leads over an artificial watercourse.
architecture
Conception
Like other works conveyor peace church with their construction in concrete the brutalism assigned - a view that is not shared by all art historians. The trained sculptor built community centers with integrated church rooms in a similar architecture in Switzerland and Germany between 1963 and 1971 . Examples are the Protestant parish hall in Moers-Hochstraß , St. Johannes in Lucerne and the Heiligkreuzkirche in Chur , whose alpine silhouette is reminiscent of the Friedenskirche. His buildings are open meeting places and designed as a walk-in sculpture with a clearly recognizable sculptural orientation. Förderer's vision of a hall that could be used for secular events beyond church services and confessional boundaries was not fully implemented. Instead of becoming a use-neutral structure, the Friedenskirche turned into a clearly sacred work of art.
structure
The highest point of the complex is the crystalline community center : a rising, 23 m high bell tower , to which the church hall connects to the south and various community rooms to the northwest. Next to the church there is a parish hall with a stage for up to 200 people and other group rooms. The youth rooms in the basement can be opened to the north to the seating steps of the so-called amphitheater . The community center has a flat-roofed two-storey staff house with a total of seven apartments in the southwest and a daycare center in the east. The buildings encompass a horseshoe-shaped church square open to the south.
inside rooms
The concrete walls, which are transparent to the outside and inside, trace the grain of the detailed wooden formwork . Elaborate technology resulted in geometrical bodies that z. T. reflect religious forms. Thus, the repeated cross in numerous external and internal walls. Arrows in the ceiling symbolize the Holy Spirit , who points in all directions.
In the church service room, niches and lofts , recesses and views, as well as the movable furnishings - from the loose seating to the baptismal font and altar table (baptismal font and altar cross designed by the Baumberg artist Hans Schweizer ) - encourage ever new liturgical forms.
Individual, small window openings that cut deep into the walls bathe the room in a subdued light. A total of 14 different switching options for the electrical light allow a very differentiated lighting of the church interior and the gallery . A 2 × 2 m screen in the altar area allows the rear projection of images and texts for church services and events. The architect had planned two lecterns for a kind of dialogue sermon, which were to be placed in concrete niches in the altar wall. However, it has not been implemented. Instead, a simple lectern adorns the chancel today. Förderer intended the active involvement of parishioners in the organization of the service and wanted to invite them to an intensive examination of the Bible . Large-scale hunger cloths on the walls and a short-pile carpet ensure excellent acoustics , so that the church service room is also often used for concerts. Elements such as orange doors or green window frames and benches set lively colored accents throughout the center.
Due to its architectural-historical importance, the entire community center was placed under monument protection in December 2018 , with the church building the highest, the staff house and the kindergarten the lowest.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Peter Becker, Evangelical Peace Church Monheim-Baumberg, Flyer of the Ev. Parish of Monheim
- ↑ a b c d Dr. Klaus-Dieter Schultz, Evangelical Peace Church Monheim-Baumberg, Flyer of the Ev. Parish Monheim (Sep 2019)
- ↑ a b Monheim | Friedenskirche. Retrieved September 24, 2019 (German).
Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 4.8 ″ N , 6 ° 53 ′ 39 ″ E