Church at the Steinhof

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Church at the Steinhof
Side view of the church
inside view

The church at Steinhof (also: Church of St. Leopold ) was built from 1904 to 1907 according to designs by Otto Wagner and is considered one of the most important buildings of the Viennese Art Nouveau . The Roman Catholic church building is located on the grounds of the " Baumgartner Höhe social medicine center " in Vienna's 14th district , Penzing ; the center has been known as the Penzing Clinic since 2020 .

history

The church of “ St. Leopold ”, better known as Kirche am Steinhof (or Otto Wagner Church at Steinhof ) was built in 1904 as part of the establishment of the Lower Austrian State Sanatorium and Nursing Home for the Nervous and Mentally Ill Am Steinhof (today Otto Wagner Spital ) until 1907. The architect Otto Wagner, who was commissioned with the planning, had to take into account that it was an institution church for mentally ill patients, and in discussions with doctors and nursing staff, he determined the special requirements for such a building. A doctor's room, toilets and emergency exits were planned, the church chairs were not allowed to have sharp corners due to the risk of injury. The left and right rows of benches have five seats for the "quiet" patients, while the two middle rows of seats for the "restless" patients only have four seats in order to facilitate access to individual people if necessary. Wagner, for whom the hygienic aspects were always a major concern in his projects, designed a variant with holy water dripping down instead of an ordinary holy water basin in order to reduce the risk of infections. He designed the floor sloping towards the chancel so that the patients in the back rows could see ahead better. The sloping floor with water drainage channels and the smoothly polished marble slabs on the walls made it easier to clean the room. In addition, there were separate entrances not only for the nursing staff, but also for male and female patients, as segregation of the sexes was mandatory in mental hospitals at that time . There was no way of the cross for fear that the sometimes violent depictions could provoke aggression. For lack of money, the lower church for Protestants and the synagogue for Jews were no longer realized. It is no longer known today whether a heating system was not installed from the start or whether it was later dilapidated and therefore removed.

On October 8, 1907, the church was opened by Archduke Franz Ferdinand . Between the Archduke, who was not very fond of Art Nouveau, and Otto Wagner, however, there were design differences from the outset, which is why Wagner was not mentioned in the opening speech and subsequently did not receive any more commissions from the imperial family. This gap, which arose from very different views on architecture and aesthetics , led the Neue Freie Presse in its October 6, 1907 edition to the question: “And isn't it a nice irony of fate that this is pretty much the first sensible large-scale Secessionist building in Vienna was built for the mad? ” .

Since 1920, when Vienna became a federal state, the church has been owned by the City of Vienna. The building deteriorated more and more until the 1990s.

After about six years of extensive renovation work, the church was reopened on October 1, 2006. Among other things, the dome was re-gilded using 2 kg of gold leaf , the drum base was renewed with artificially patinated copper sheets and the facade made of Carrara marble was completely replaced. Windows, mosaics and figures have been carefully cleaned and restored. The popular altar and ambo were rebuilt. Baumgartner Höhe , on which the church is located, owes its nickname "Lemoniberg" to the golden dome, which now shines in new splendor and is visible from afar in the west of Vienna, reminiscent of half a lemon . The church received three new bells in 2007, made by the Grassmayr bell foundry . The church is only open for church services and on Saturdays and Sundays for a fee. There are also guided tours on these days.

architecture

Statue of St. Leopold
Statue of St. Severin

The church at Steinhof, along with the Secession building, is one of the main works of Art Nouveau in Vienna and shows design parallels to the cemetery church of St. Karl Borromeo at Vienna's central cemetery , designed by Otto Wagner student Max Hegele in 1899 and completed in 1910 . One of the most distinctive features of the church is the golden dome, based on a Byzantine motif, supported by an internally clad construction. On the bell towers in front of it, St. Leopold as patron of Lower Austria and Vienna and the preacher Severin in the east. The figures were created by Richard Luksch . Like the orientation of the church to the south instead of to the east , the depiction of the saints sitting instead of standing represented a break.

Under the cornice there is a decorative strip with crosses and laurel wreaths , which are often incorporated into Otto Wagner buildings, such as B. also with the Post Office Savings Bank or the cast iron light rail railings . Four angel figures created by Othmar Schimkowitz stand above the main entrance, which was then only used for larger celebrations, with bowed heads facing the church square. In a storm the head of the second angel from the right had been torn off and soldered on again by the caretaker, albeit with his head held high. This fact was remedied during the renovation.

Leaded glass window

Leaded glass window The bodily virtues

The arrangement of the leaded glass windows was designed by Otto Wagner in such a way that the church interior is flooded with daylight as best as possible. The Tiffany style glass mosaic windows were designed by Koloman Moser and created by Leopold Forstner . The western window with the motto “Truly I say to you. What you did to one of these least of these brothers of mine you did to me ”shows the bodily virtues. The angels above the saints humbly hold the shroud of Jesus. The altar boys lower their heads when looking from below upwards.

Leaded glass window The spiritual virtues

The eastern window with the motto "Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy" shows the spiritual virtues. The angels look up at a dove. The acolytes raise their heads.

The four windows in the dome show the four evangelists .

The large window above the entrance is covered by the organ on the inside, but is also directed outwards. It shows God the Father with outstretched hands over the six days of creation, he himself casts his gaze over the surrounding land according to the Bible passage 1. Moses 31: God saw everything that he had made: and, behold, it was very good. He is flanked by two angels as well as Adam and Eve. The work drawing was shown at the Kunstschau Wien in 1908 .

Altarpiece

Altarpiece mosaic by Leopold Forstner

The altarpiece The Promise of Heaven was originally intended to be designed by Koloman Moser. Prelate Heinrich Swoboda, who had been entrusted with the supervision of the church by the church, had already criticized and objected to the side windows. However, when Moser married Ditha Mautner Markhof (1883–1969) on July 1, 1905 and converted to Protestantism, the commission was withdrawn from him despite the intercession of Otto Wagner. Carl Ederer , who was already working on the commission at the same time , presented a draft that was similar to that of Moser and was created in this form at Swoboda's insistence. Moser consequently accused Ederer of plagiarism, whereupon he filed a lawsuit at the urging of the other members of the Secession , from which Moser had already resigned in 1905. The process ended with a settlement and Moser's apology "with the expression of lively regret" at the "ignorance of the circumstances". When the church opened in 1907, only Ederer's draft on cardboard could be exhibited. With the agreement of Moser and Wagner, Remigius Geyling created a new design in 1910 , but he abandoned the order in 1911 due to "lack of suitability". The execution of the 84.8 m 2 large and four ton heavy mosaic was ultimately carried out by Leopold Forstner .

The altarpiece shows the blessing Christ and two angels in the middle.

Stand to his right

Stand on his left

  • The St. Joseph
  • St. Elisabeth of Thuringia , symbol of active charity
  • Hermann the German, first prior of a Dominican monastery in the German-speaking area in Friesach
  • St. Christophorus , helper against unprepared death, patron saint of travelers, one of the fourteen helpers in need
  • St. Francis of Assisi , patron of the poor and social work. Helper against headaches and the plague
  • St. Pantaleon , patron saint of doctors and midwives, one of the fourteen helpers in need

On the steps of the church St. Leopold and hands over the Steinhof Church. The figures to the side of the altarpiece represent Paul with a sword and Peter with a key. The altar was made according to designs by Otto Wagner. The mosaics of the side altars are by Rudolf Jettmar . The right one shows the Annunciation of Mary, the left the Archangel Gabriel . The confessionals were made by the Wiener Werkstätte .

People's altar and ambo

People's Altar

These two parts of the facility, which were necessary for the re-opening in 2006 due to the liturgical reform in the Second Vatican Council , were designed by Dieter Henke and Marta Schreieck . Strict requirements of the Federal Monuments Office and the Archdiocese had to be observed, which on the one hand stipulated that the new objects should not be imitations of the existing Art Nouveau elements and that they had to be removed again without damage. The two objects consist of a pedestal made of terrazzo screed on which a filigree construction made of metal rods support the synthetic resin panels of the altar and ambo. At the altar three glass stones made of Swarovski glass in the colors red, green and blue are integrated into the frame.

This construction gave rise to liturgical problems, as an altar must be made of stone on the one hand and must be immovable in the church on the other. This was circumvented by the fact that the altar was not consecrated but blessed, which is possible since it does not contain any relics of a saint and the church is not a parish church either.

literature

  • Otto Antonia Graf: Otto Wagner. Volume 1: The Architect's Work 1860–1902. 2nd edition, Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1994, ISBN 3-205-98224-X , pp. 400-420 ( writings of the Institute for Art History. Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 2, 1).
  • Elisabeth Koller-Glück: Otto Wagner's Church at the Steinhof. Edition Tusch, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-85063-157-5 .

Web links

Commons : Kirche am Steinhof  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Public guided tour of the Steinhof Church on February 1, 2020
  2. ^ The church of the Lower Austrian state insane asylum at Steinhof, built by Otto Wagner , Neue Freie Presse of October 6, 1907, p. 13 (mu).
  3. ↑ The "Lemoniberg": Once the largest insane asylum in Europe. ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2015 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. on springermedizin.at @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.springermedizin.at
  4. ^ New bells for the Vienna Church at Steinhof , Der Standard from January 22, 2008.
  5. ↑ Hegele-Wagner - a comparison. Parallels between the church at Steinhof and the cemetery church of St. Karl Borromeo . Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ^ Draft for the altar wall of the church at Steinhof on the website of the University of Klagenfurt
  8. ^ Ilse Reiter: Gustav Harpner (1864-1924). From anarchist defender to lawyer for the republic. Böhlau, Vienna 2008, ISBN 3-205-78144-9 , p. 471ff.
  9. ↑ "Are they allowed to do that?" Report from Die Presse on November 11, 2006 , accessed on July 14, 2020

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 38 ″  N , 16 ° 16 ′ 44 ″  E