Matthew Church (Pforzheim)
The Matthäuskirche is a Protestant church in the Pforzheim district of Arlinger. It is on the outskirts of the garden city with the address Hochkopfstraße 30 .
The Matthäuskirche is one of the most important new church buildings of post-war modernism. It was the model for numerous post-war church buildings, the most famous of which is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. The two churches in Pforzheim and Berlin designed by Egon Eiermann are very different in terms of design, although the honeycomb window element is used in both. The architecture of St. Matthew's Church was viewed critically by contemporaries as "stubborn technicalism".
history
The church was built from 1951 to 1953 according to plans by Egon Eiermann with the help of Helmut Striffler , and the tower was added in 1956. The construction consists of a simple concrete skeleton, which made it possible to fill the wall surfaces with honeycomb window elements with colorful Dall glass panes . In cooperation with the Schopfheim glass artist Hans Theo Baumann , who also proposed the use of shaped stones, the first exposed concrete church building of the post-war period in Germany was created. The honeycomb stones vary in color because Egon Eiermann had rubble chippings added as an aggregate. Baumann also made the first altar cross and the baptismal bowl, also made of thick glass. The table substructure known today as the "Eiermann frame" was used as an altar construction for the first time in St. Matthew's Church. The inauguration took place on July 12, 1953 in the presence of the architect.
The forecourt, originally designed from a lawn with stepping stones and groups of trees, was concreted in the early 1970s as part of new community buildings.
The preservation of the church caused some problems for those responsible, especially since the cover of the concrete reinforcement was too tight, while the concrete construction was very poor. The truss construction was reinforced with an external gate lock as early as 1974, which increased the dimensions of the building and lost its original lightness. The monument value of the building results from the unchanged interior, which has been preserved since then.
The canopy over the outside staircase was renovated in 1990 and, compared to the result of the facade renovation in 1974, was able to maintain its tight dimensions. The wicker stalls inside were restored in 1992/93. The last extensive renovation work to date took place on the tower from 1998 to 1999.
layout
The model for Eiermann's church building was the French church Notre-Dame in Le Raincy near Paris by the architect Auguste Perret (1922), in which the "sacred room lighting of the Gothic" was the focus, while the rest of the design was reduced to the most concise forms .
The use of rubble from Pforzheim as an aggregate in the production of the honeycomb windows and the molded concrete blocks was also intended to provide a material example of the survival after the destruction in the Second World War. The coloring of these honeycomb windows, designed by the designer Hans Theo Baumann, appears rather expressive compared to the Berlin Memorial Church that was built later.
The interior was also designed by Egon Eiermann. The granite floor made of paving stones (approx. 8 × 8 cm), the chairs, the offering box , the hanging lamps, the altar and the cross originally made of blue cast glass on the altar are from his workshop of ideas. The original altar cross was replaced in 1959 after protests from the parish by a work by the Braunschweig artist Jürgen Weber . For the consecration of the church, the Berlin-based artist Hans Kuhn donated six plaster panels, which were framed with forged iron frames and initially attached to the gallery. On the occasion of the church building conference in Karlsruhe in 1956, they were exchanged for the pictures by Erhart Mitzlaff , which are now in a different order than the original .
literature
- Chris Gerbing: Luminous walls in concrete. The Matthäuskirche Pforzheim (1951–53) by Egon Eiermann: Their role models, their role model function. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7954-2704-7 .
- Christoph Timm: Monuments of the post-war era in Pforzheim and their problems. In: Badische Heimat 1995, pp. 421–440, on the Matthäuskirche, pp. 434–436.
- Christoph Timm: Pforzheim: cultural monuments in the districts. Theiss, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-89735-428-4 .
Web links
- Matthew Congregation
- Matthew parish at the Ev. Church administration Pforzheim
- Photos and information about construction and architect
Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 20.3 " N , 8 ° 39 ′ 26.6" E