Queen Luise Memorial Church (Berlin)

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Queen Luise Memorial Church

The Queen Luise Memorial Church is the only significant Protestant church building on the so-called “ Red Island ”, a neighborhood in the Schöneberg district of Berlin .

location

The church stands on Gustav-Müller-Platz , which - apart from the small Leuthener Platz - is also the only (in the narrower urban planning sense) actual square on the "Red Island", which is completely surrounded by railway lines, from which the name " Island ”.

With its distinctive neo-baroque dome, the church structure shapes the image of the entire building ensemble . This dome is also the reason why the church is somewhat disrespectfully referred to as the " cheese bell " in Berlin .

Building history

The Evangelical parish of Schöneberg acquired the property in 1904 from the Schöneberg Boden-Gesellschaft mbH station for 65,000  marks .

In May 1908, an architectural competition "for a church on Gustav-Müller-Platz" was announced with a deadline of August 15, 1908. 168 designs were received, three of which were awarded and three more were purchased. However, as none of these designs were initially accepted, another “closer competition” was initiated, in which five architects who had been invited by name took part.

The hall church projected by the Friedenau architect Fritz Berger ultimately won this second stage of the competition, and the foundation stone was laid on December 23, 1910. After fifteen months of construction, the church on March 10, 1912 inaugurated .

Surname

The foundation stone was laid in the 100th year of death, the inauguration on the 136th birthday of Queen Luise of Prussia , to whom the church was named in honor. According to contemporary sources, the naming was not without controversy among its members in the first years of the new parish. This was due to the fact that two parties faced each other in the community: one called positive , which was more conservative and loyal to the emperor , and a liberal .

This corresponded to the social structure of the “Red Island” during the imperial era : On the one hand, the Kiez was the location of a Prussian army unit , on the other hand , a large part of the population openly sympathized with social democracy . The fact that the latter was the stronger group is still evident today from the popular name "Red Island".

Today the Queen Luise Memorial Church is a listed building . It is the main preaching place of the Evangelical Queen Luise and Silas Church Community , which is evangelical-Lutheran . Services take place every first to third Sunday at 10 a.m. The community offer is supplemented by many activities in the field of child, youth, adult and senior work. The parish hall and the sexton's shop are located at Leberstrasse 7.

The church building

An octagon was chosen in the floor plan . Above the rather simple, limestone main entrance there is a large multi-part arched window with light lead glazing , which allows a lot of daylight to enter the main church. The altar area with a modern altar table on a stainless steel base is slightly elevated on a podium. A simple head-high wooden cross stands in front of a white, unadorned wall. A row of pipes from a small organ can be seen at the top of the wall. This altar area was redesigned in 1979 by the Berlin artist Volkmar Haase .

In the second half of the 1920s, the interior of the church was extensively painted. The artist Hermann Sandkuhl chose for his work, completed in 1928 and executed with casein paints , which centered on scenes from the life of Christ, a depiction of Jesus as a representative of the common people, which mainly the working people listen and run up to. The conception of social Christianity, understood by observers to be modern, was an obvious attempt to establish a relationship between the motives and the lifeworld of believers from the working class in this part of Schöneberg. The three-part painting consisted of four large murals on the corner walls (birth, Jesus as a teacher, Jesus as a preacher, crucifixion), four smaller group pictures in the dome above (baptism, confirmation, wedding ceremony, communion) and 16 praying figures in the dome itself, behind where a city silhouette reminiscent of the Schöneberg area could be seen. The murals were painted over during a first renovation of the interior of the church in 1962.

The church can accommodate up to 750 people.

literature

  • Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical churches in Berlin. CZV-Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-7674-0158-4 .
  • Thomas Götz, Peter Eichhorn: Berlin. Sacred places. Edition 2010. Grebennikow Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-94178409-3 , pp. 70-71.

Web links

Commons : Königin-Luise-Gedächtniskirche (Berlin)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 42, 1908, No. 44 (from May 30, 1908), p. 300.
  2. ↑ Two sheets of the competition design by Sanmicheli Wolkenstein are in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin : Inventory no. 42860 and inventory no . 42861
  3. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 42, 1908, No. 70 (from August 29, 1908), p. 484.
  4. ↑ The painting of the Queen Luise Memorial Church . In: Vossische Zeitung , June 13, 1928, morning edition, first supplement, p. 2.
  5. ↑ Thomas Götz, Peter Eichhorn: Berlin. Sacred places. Edition 2010. Grebennikow Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-94178409-3 , pp. 70-71.

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 1 ″  N , 13 ° 21 ′ 45 ″  E