Friedenskirche (Barmen)
The Peace Church in the center of Barmen , the so-called Gemarke (since 1929 part of Wuppertal ), was the second built for the Lutheran congregation Barmen church. It was located on the northeastern edge of the Barmer Neumarkt, between Mühlenweg and Großer Flurstraße.
history
In the course of industrialization, the number of Lutherans in Barmen increased sharply, not least due to the influx from largely Lutheran Prussia. The old church in Wupperfeld was the only Lutheran church in Barmen to date and became too small for the Lutheran community of Wupperfeld, which had grown to around 10,000 by 1850. In 1851 the congregation began to think about new church buildings, in 1866 plans to build a large church were abandoned and a decision was made in favor of two new, smaller churches in two different outskirts of the congregation: the Friedenskirche in the west, not far from the Reformed Gemarker Church , and the Johanniskirche in East on the opposite side of Wuppers. The Berlin architect Hermann Cuno was commissioned to plan both churches . The Church of Peace was the larger, the first to be completed, the foundation stone was laid in July 1869, and the Church of Peace was consecrated on November 29, 1871, just under a year before the St. John's Church was opened.
Building description
Like the Johanniskirche, the Friedenskirche was a brick-walled, neo-Gothic building. The three-aisled hall church was preceded by a cross bar with side entrances on the sides under separate triangular gables. In the middle of this transverse building rose the square tower with the main portal, which continued in an octagonal manner above the clock floor and was crowned with an octagonal pointed helmet. Behind the facade of the free-standing church was the nave with five bays illuminated by high windows. A five-eighth choir had moved into the rear north wall, which was closed off by a stepped gable. A kind Zwerchgalerie as a horizontal structural element and numerous, with finials crowned turrets in eaves, the stepped gable and at the upper end of the second tower floor gave the building a filigree appearance.
The interior was divided into three naves by wooden galleries, the pulpit was located on the triumphal arch, the stalls were aligned parallel to the choir. There was a third gallery above the entrance. The church offered space for 1,200 people. During a renovation in 1928/29, the pulpit was placed in the middle behind the altar and, in keeping with the Bergisch preaching churches, the stalls were aligned concentrically with the pulpit. On May 30, 1943, the church was destroyed in a heavy air raid on Barmen , the remains were removed in 1952. The northeast corner of the extension of the Barmen town hall is on the site today .
Peace Home
The community served after the Second World War, the 1912-13 erected diagonally opposite at Mühlenweg and inaugurated on January 4, 1914 Friedenheim as God's house, actually the parish hall of the Church of Peace, decreed that large over a fairly church hall. This building is an early example of the objectification of architecture in the turn away from historicism and Art Nouveau in the 1910s and has therefore been a listed building since 1994. With the unification of the Lutheran and Reformed parishes in Wuppertal in the mid-1980s, the Lutheran peace parish, which only became independent in 1967, merged with the Reformed parish of the Gemarker Church to form the United Evangelical Parish of Gemarke in Wuppertal-Barmen . Since 1997 the church has not held regular church services in the building, but it was used by the African church for the Sunday worship service. In the summer of 2010, the Ev. Parish Gemarke-Wupperfeld in Barmen gave the building to a Wuppertal investor, the African parish has been holding its services in the Lutherheim of the Lutherkirche am Heidt ever since . Since 2014, the church service room of the Independent Evangelical Reformed Congregation (SERG) in Wuppertal has been located in a room in the former church hall.
literature
- Werner Franzen: Worship sites in transition. Evangelical church building in the Rhineland 1860–1914 (= writings of the archives of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. No. 34). 2 volumes. Archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-930250-47-0 (At the same time: Duisburg, University, dissertation, 2002, online ( Memento from December 11, 2005 in the Internet Archive )).
- Sigrid Lekebusch, Florian Speer (eds.): Churches and places of worship in Barmen (= churches and places of worship in Wuppertal. Vol. 2 = Contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Vol. 43). Schmidt, Neustadt (Aisch) 2008, ISBN 978-3-87707-721-4
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
Individual evidence
- ^ History of the parish Heidt ( Memento from September 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on their website
Coordinates: 51 ° 16 ′ 23 " N , 7 ° 11 ′ 59" E