Holy Spirit (Cologne-Weiden)

Portal side and tower

Heilig Geist is a Catholic church in the Cologne district of Weiden , which was built between 1966 and 1970 according to plans by the architects Bernhard and Bernd Rotterdam .

history

Heilig Geist belongs to the parish of St. Marien in Weiden, whose Marienkirche was originally designed as an emergency church from 1927 and was no longer able to cope with the increasing population growth of the district at the end of the 1960s. In addition to the spatial requirements according to the Second Vatican Council, the order to the Rotterdam office contained the wish that the church should "take into account the feelings of modern man [...]", but should not have any extreme, experimental forms.

After the purchase of a plot of land and the first preliminary planning in 1965, the construction of the new church began in January 1966, which was officially consecrated as the Holy Spirit Church on September 17, 1972 by the Cologne Auxiliary Bishop Augustinus Frotz . The congregation had been using the building for worship since May 1970.

The construction of the surrounding parish center lasted until 1977.

Building description

A polygonal brick building, which is completely closed except for a window at the eaves , is surmounted on the side by a high tower on a rectangular floor plan. The roof surface first slopes down to the widest part of the building, then rises again and then reaches its highest point above the choir, which protrudes narrowly from the floor plan. The all-round ribbon of windows is structured by the roof with a crown-like lead cladding, which gives the windowless walls a striking finish. On the portal side, the staircase to the organ gallery with two small windows protrudes below this cladding. The tower's cylindrical staircase, which hugs the two-story tower and church structure, is also separated.

Like the main building, the tower is made of brick and is structured in floors with horizontal concrete strips. Its tip is in the form of a slight notch and merges on all four sides into vertical slotted openings running centrally over three floors.

The entrance portal, which is provided with a concrete relief as a lintel , leads into a vestibule, above which the organ loft is supported by four slender columns. From here you can get to the place of baptism or the weekday chapel - a single-storey extension - and the Marienkapelle in the tower. Towards the choir, the floor sinks slightly so that the raised altar niche appears even more dynamic. Four slender concrete columns, which are statically not absolutely necessary, structure the space around the congregation - which somewhat contradicts the actual goal of grouping the congregation around the altar.

To the left of the entrance area is a low baptismal and working day chapel, which is illuminated from above by a round light dome with ribbon windows.

The interior is brightly lit by the surrounding ribbon of windows, which widens on the rear wall of the altar and "marks" the altar as the most important place in the church with a downward pointing tip. The light room effect is enhanced by the use of light tuff as wall material. The rising ceiling is clad with wood.

Furnishing

In addition to the altar table made of gray marble as well as the tabernacle , ambo and priest's benches, the sculptor Sepp Hürten also created the weather vane on the tower and the concrete relief above the entrance portal. Opposite the tabernacle, which occupies the right side of the wall in front of the choir niche, there is a baroque Madonna. The baptismal font was made by Gerhard Biermann in 1983.

The lead-glazed windows in antique and opal glass were created by the artist Ludwig Schaffrath in the 1990s, with the exception of three small square panes of unknown origin in the Marienkapelle . With the violet-light gray ribbon windows, his abstract composition culminates in an association of an eye.

The two-manual organ with 27 registers from 1981 comes from the workshop of Romanus Seifert . Your brochure was designed by the architect himself.

The four-part bronze bell of the Mabilon bell foundry was installed in 1974. The strikes of the individual bells are d ¹ - f ¹ - g ¹ - b ¹

Web links

Commons : Heilig-Geist-Kirche (Cologne-Weiden) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Forschungsstelle Glasmalerei des 20. Jh. EV with illustrations and explanations of the windows

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Bernd Koch: The architect Bernhard Rotterdam and his church buildings in the Rhineland . 1st edition. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-89870-326-0 , p. 88-90 .

↑ Catholic parish of St. Marien / Cologne-Weiden. Retrieved April 18, 2020 .

↑ ^a ^b Monika Schmelzer: Holy Spirit . In: Manfred Becker-Huberti, Günter A. Menne (Ed.): Churches in Cologne. The churches of the Catholic and Protestant communities in Cologne. Bachem, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1731-3 , p. 70 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Helmut Fußbroich, Dierk Holthausen: Architectural Guide Cologne: Sacred Buildings after 1900 . 1st edition. Bachem, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7616-1683-X , p. 236-237 .

↑ Cologne-Weiden, Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit. In: glasmalerei-ev.net. Research Center for Glass Painting of the 20th Century V., July 8, 2008, accessed April 10, 2020 .

^ Gerhard Hoffs: Bells of Catholic churches in Cologne . Cologne 1985, p. 750 ( archive.org [PDF]).

50.936171 6.837281Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 10.2 " N , 6 ° 50 ′ 14.2" E

[:2-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Bernd Koch: The architect Bernhard Rotterdam and his church buildings in the Rhineland . 1st edition. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-89870-326-0 , p. 88-90 .

[2] Catholic parish of St. Marien / Cologne-Weiden. Retrieved April 18, 2020 .

[:0-3] Monika Schmelzer: Holy Spirit . In: Manfred Becker-Huberti, Günter A. Menne (Ed.): Churches in Cologne. The churches of the Catholic and Protestant communities in Cologne. Bachem, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1731-3 , p. 70 .