Luther Church (Bad Steben)
The Luther Church is the main church of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Bad Steben in Upper Franconia . The church was built from 1908 to 1910. Together with the Pauluskirche in Ulm, it was one of the first two churches in Germany where reinforced concrete was used to a large extent as exposed concrete . It has 1250 seats and has been called the Luther Church since 1985.
Church building
The lack of space due to a growing community and an increasing number of spa guests as well as considerable construction defects in the Gothic fortified church of St. Walburga prompted the Protestant parish of Bad Steben to have a new church built at the beginning of the 20th century.
After several rejected planning drafts, including in the Gothic style, the building department assessor Richard Neithardt was commissioned by the royal agricultural department in Hof with a design. In April 1908 the order for the execution planning followed, outside in forms of the Heimat style , inside the Art Nouveau . Neidhardt's concept envisaged building the church interior with reinforced concrete, a new building material at the time, for reasons of cost. The groundbreaking ceremony followed on October 23, 1908, the laying of the foundation stone in May 1909 and the topping-out ceremony in mid-September 1909. The church was consecrated on October 9, 1910. The site manager was Gustav Wenz.
The organ was built by the Nuremberg organ building company Strebel with 22 registers on two manuals and a pedal . In 1980 it was renovated by the Hey organ building company .
architecture
The church has a strongly structured structure with tent, hip and gable roofs , which are covered with red beaver tail tiles. The towers are finished with copper roofs. The vertical outer surfaces are partially covered with slate at the top . The white plastered wall surfaces are decorated with pilaster strips and corner edging made of diabase blocks . The interior of the church is reminiscent of Romanesque - Byzantine rooms, the three-sided gallery of the typical preacher churches in Upper Franconia. In the main nave, which is longitudinally aligned by a barrel vault as a ceiling construction, the view is directed towards the choir with the altar, which is spanned by a semi-dome . The altar structure is the work of Joseph Floßmann and shows, among other things, the crucified Christ between Mary and John, Mary Magdalene and Joseph von Arimathia . The apse mosaic above with the risen Christ comes from the Rauecker court mosaic institute in Munich. The ornamentation of the so-called functional Art Nouveau can be found on the coffered ceilings under the gallery and the pillars.
Construction and material
Reinforced concrete vaulted ceilings span the interior of the church. The vaulted concrete barrel above the main nave has a vertex height of 13.4 meters above the floor. It consists of ceiling tiles that are five centimeters thick in the crown and eight centimeters thick in the fighter . They are supported by longitudinal covers every 1.95 meters. Two arched trusses guide the loads from the coatings into four reinforced concrete pillars with circular cross-sections 0.6 meters in diameter. The trusses are arranged in the direction of the roof space, 0.7 meters high and 0.22 meters wide. They have a wingspan of 13.1 meters and are curved with a constant radius of 6.45 meters. The galleries above the side aisles have ceilings made of cross-reinforced panels and are supported, among other things, by the parapets designed as covers. A wooden roof structure up to 10 meters high is arranged above the reinforced concrete barrel. The nave has a maximum height of 30, the church tower 44 meters. The reinforced concrete work was carried out by the Alban Vetterlein Co. from Glauchau . The concrete reinforced with round wrought iron remained visible, the surface was carved like a stone.
The church interior usually has a humidity of over 90 percent, which prevents corrosion of the reinforcing steel.
local community
The parishes of Bad Steben, Bobengrün and Langenbach form the parish of Bad Steben, which has about 1950 parish members.
literature
- Günther Döring: The Luther Church in Bad Steben . In: Hanns Michael Scholler (Ed.): The presidential building of the government of Upper Franconia and its epoch . Bayreuth 2006, ISBN 3-00-017544-X
- Karl-Heinz Betz: Luther Church Bad Steben, district court . Schnell Art Guide No. 1570, Schnell & Steiner Verlag, Munich and Zurich 1985.
Web links
- frankenwald.bayern-online.de: The Evangelical Luther Church in Bad Steben
- The Lutherkirche Bad Steben is a "cultural church"
- The Luther Church Bad Steben is a "cycle path church"
- The Lutherkirche Bad Steben is an "open church"
Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 57 " N , 11 ° 38 ′ 30" E