Gaisburg Church
The Gaisburger Church (actually Evangelical City Parish Church Stuttgart-Gaisburg ) is a Protestant church in the Gaisburg district in East Stuttgart . It was created from 1911 to 1913 by the architect Martin Elsaesser as a reinforced concrete structure in a mixture of late Art Nouveau , Neoclassicism and Neo-Baroque . It is considered one of the most beautiful churches in Stuttgart .
prehistory
At the location of the Gaisburg church, a mountain spur above the left bank of the Neckar , there was probably a chapel since the 12th century . It was consecrated to Saint Barbara and was built by monks from the Hirsau Monastery in the northern Black Forest , which owned vineyards here. In 1584 the chapel was replaced by a larger church in the center of the village, which was demolished in 1913 after the current church was built. In the vestibule of today's building, which was erected on the mountain spur around 300 meters from the former church location, various things from the old Gaisburg church have been preserved, such as the baptismal font and figures of saints from the earlier high altar from the 16th century. The chapel and church were located on an old pilgrimage route to the pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain , with the Jacob pilgrims crossing the Neckar near Gaisburg.
The building of a new church at the beginning of the 20th century became necessary because the previously independent Gaisburg had changed from a small wine-growing village to an important working-class suburb of Stuttgart and the population grew rapidly. The Stuttgart gasworks were relocated to Gaisburg as early as 1874, followed by the city's slaughterhouse in 1909 . After Gaisburg was incorporated into Stuttgart in 1901 and the congregation joined the Stuttgart congregation in 1903, the Protestant congregation from Gaisburg wanted a larger and representative church building. For this reason, an architectural competition was announced in 1910 , from which the second prize by the then 26-year-old Martin Elsaesser was selected.
history
The new Gaisburg Church was finally built from 1911 to 1913 using modern reinforced concrete. Elsaesser, born in 1884, was a kind of young star on the Stuttgart architecture scene. Almost simultaneously with the Gaisburg church, he planned and built the new Stuttgart market hall in the city center in 1914 and the Wagenburg high school in the east of Stuttgart in the same year . The aim of the architect and client was for the new church building in the exposed location on the mountain spur to be "visible from all sides as a monumental testimony to Protestantism and to shine the" light of the gospel "in the politically red and thus predominantly anti-church (...) East of Stuttgart let ” .
During the Second World War , this exposed location near the gas works meant that the Gaisburg church was badly damaged. Although the building was restored in the 1950s , a major restoration was not initiated until 1976. Today the church is a listed building .
architecture
Architecture History Gaisburger the church was in an experimental phase between traditional churches in the style of Romanesque Revival and neo-Gothic and after the First World War onset of classical modernism . Stylistically it is a mixture of late Art Nouveau , Neoclassicism and Neo-Baroque .
The church consists of a rectangular vestibule , above which a cuboid tower rises, as well as an elliptical central structure , above which an oval dome supported by 14 Ionic columns rests. The entrance portal is surmounted by three round arches , above which the prophet Moses , King David and the apostle Paul can be seen as seated figures . From the vestibule you get into the oval, hall-like interior, above which there is a curved, two-story gallery . The massive tower is loosened up by the hollowing of its corners, a recessed bell storey and a tent-like roof helmet . It is open for tours on Sunday afternoons and offers a wide panoramic view of the Neckar Valley and the east of Stuttgart .
Church interior
While the Gaisburg Church exudes classical austerity on the outside, inside it shows a more cheerful lightness. This impression is created not only by the curved shapes of the oval floor plan and the round gallery, but also by a monumental Art Nouveau mural on the altar walls ( apse ). This representation of the history of the world from creation to Easter was designed by the Stuttgart artist Käte Schaller-Härlin , who was friends with the architect Martin Elsaesser. Schaller-Härlin created 17 dark, green to turquoise-colored pictures, which are framed by floral patterns of a tree of life . The three windows between the wall paintings were originally designed by Käte Schaller-Härlin in 1913 in monochrome, with delicate lead-rod light glazing, with the motif of the tree of life. After the war destruction in 1944, windows designed one after the other by Helmuth Uhrig in 1949 , by Wolf-Dieter Kohler in 1963 and finally by Gaiser & Fieber glass painting in 1993, the last and current ornament version approximating the original from 1913. For the congregation, the entire design of the interior of the church also has a religious meaning: "As an earthly image of the heavenly Jerusalem built in stone, it offers space for the positive and life-affirming dimension of the Christian faith."
In a certain contrast to this lightness are the massive individual pieces altar , pulpit and baptismal font , which were created from tuff by the sculptor Christian Scheufele (1884–1915) . Late Gothic wooden sculptures from the early 16th century, which come from the old village church, are placed in the anteroom of the Gaisburg church . It is about Jesus and the twelve apostles as well as Maria , Saint Barbara , Saint Ottilie and Saint Jodokus . Some sculptures refer to the past of the church: St. Barbara reminds of the former chapel in this place. And the depiction of Jodok with a shell , the symbol of the James pilgrims, indicates that Gaisburg was on an old pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela . Also in the vestibule is a portrait of Elsaesser in the late Impressionist style, which was painted by Schaller-Härlin.
organ
The organ was built in 1913 by the organ building workshop Friedrich Weigle (Stuttgart). The instrument does not have its own pedals - the pedal stops are distributed over the three sub-works. Between 1976 and 1988 the instrument was rebuilt and expanded in several phases. The former membrane drawers were also exchanged for slider drawers. The electro-pneumatic action was retained.
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- Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
- Playing aids : two free combinations, one free pedal combination, tutti, crescendo roller
Detail photos
The Moses figure above the entrance portal
The David figure
The Paul figure
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
literature
- Elisabeth Spitzbart-Maier: The church buildings of Martin Elsaesser. Dissertation, Stuttgart 1989.
- Roland Müller (Hrsg.): The Evangelical parish church in Stuttgart-Gaisburg. ; Publication of the archive of the city of Stuttgart, volume 86; Hohenheim, Stuttgart / Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-89850-967-2 .
- Klaus Pantle: Little church guide through the Evangelical parish church in Stuttgart-Gaisburg ; ed. Evangelical Church Community Stuttgart-Gaisburg; Stuttgart undated (2005)
- Elmar Blessing: Around the church tower - The history of the Evangelical Church Community Stuttgart-Gaisburg 1913-2013 ; Stuttgart 2013
- Ehmer, Hermann: Growing city - growing church. The ecclesiastical development of Stuttgart between the founding of the Empire and the First World War ; in: Blätter für Wuerttemberg Church History, 113th year Stuttgart 2013, pages 227–274
- Schilling, Jörg: The city parish church in Stuttgart-Gaisburg 1910-1913 , construction booklet 03 from the series "Martin-Elsaesser-construction books"; ed. Florian Afflerbach, Dr. Jörg Schilling; Hamburg 2013
- Elisabeth Spitzbart, Jörg Schilling: Martin Elsaesser. Church buildings, parish and parish houses. Tübingen, Berlin 2014, catalog no.22, pages 97 + 162 - ISBN 978-3-8030-0778-0 .
Web links
- The homepage of the Evangelical Church Community Stuttgart-Gaisburg
- On the origin and architecture of the Gaisburg Church
- To the prehistory of the church
- the architecture of the Gaisburg Church. In: arch INFORM .
Coordinates: 48 ° 47 '9.6 " N , 9 ° 13' 4.7" E