Melchior Hessler

Melchior Heßler (* around 1619 in Mehlis ; † April 18, 1690 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German engineer and builder .

Heßler was an engineer in the artillery and presumably entered the service of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main from 1661 as a piece lieutenant and city ​​architect . His service letter is dated May 29, 1675.

Since hardly any new buildings were built in Frankfurt during his tenure, his task was essentially limited to the maintenance of the urban fabric. His most important new buildings include the expansion of the fortifications begun in 1627 according to plans by Johann Wilhelm Dilich .

Above all, however, Melchior built the Katharinenkirche from 1678 to 1681 , the first Protestant church in Frankfurt since the Reformation . The single-nave hall church shows both Gothic style elements (e.g. in the tracery of the windows and in the buttresses ) as well as Baroque (e.g. in the portals and the French dome of the tower). With its consistent orientation as a preaching church, combined with richly decorated pictures with biblical motifs, it became a model for several other Protestant churches: the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Speyer (1701–1717) and the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Worms (1709–1725).

literature

• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 .