Community center of the Protestant student community, Mainz
The community center of the Evangelical Student Community, Mainz is located in the district of Hartenberg-Münchfeld opposite the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz on Saarstrasse / L 419.
Location and architecture
The construction of the community center was designed from 1967 to 1969 by the Swiss architect and designer Ernst Gisel on behalf of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau in an international style and realized together with Leo Schweitzer and the Wiesbaden engineer R. Schaeffer. At the time of its completion, the building complex comprised 117 single rooms and 6 two-room apartments for student couples, as well as the ESG church, community halls and 4 apartments for the student pastor and the management of the residential and functional complex. The "Deutsche Bauzeitschrift" reported in June 1968 on the church with a seating capacity of 475. Next to the staircase to the gallery is the organ tower for an organ with 30 registers. There is space for 50 singers in the gallery. The church building is flanked by the student housing units.
The entrance to the church is from the ensemble's spacious inner courtyard. Under the gallery you get to the church, whose sacred power is emphasized by the height of the building over two floors. The lighting is largely through narrow skylights and the glazed entrance area, so the vertical walls made of white painted brick appear as independent stylistic devices or components. The church has no steeple.
The architect designed an anti-hierarchical space with great simplicity. The altar as the center of the divine service extends at ground level in the church. The position of the altar is determined by the way the flooring is laid in a semicircle. The apse is designed as a zone of contemplation.
The church with the community center was created as a place of worship, meeting and conversation for the university campus and its residents, for their everyday life and Sunday - not remote from the world, but in the middle of life. The ensemble set urban and architectural standards.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Evangelical Student Center in Mainz with the University Church, doi : 10.5169 / seals-45129