Ring Church
The Ringkirche is a Protestant church in Wiesbaden , which the architect and builder Johannes Otzen built in the years 1892 to 1894 in neo-Romanesque style. Its twin tower forms the western end of the broad visual axis of Rheinstrasse . The Ringkirche was the first Protestant church in Germany to be built according to the so-called Wiesbaden program , a church building program that was based on Martin Luther's demands for a “ priesthood of all believers ”. The result is a functional central building , which by the end of the First World War became a model for numerous Protestant church buildings in Germany. The trend-setting building from the Wilhelminian era has largely been able to retain its original shape to this day.
Building history
initial situation
The city of Wiesbaden experienced rapid development from the second half of the 19th century. The world spa town of that time was a magnet for wealthy citizens and members of the nobility. After the annexation of the Duchy of Nassau by Prussia after the German War in 1866, the city also became very popular among the Prussian kings and later German emperors, who now used the former Nassau city palace as their residence during their visits. In particular, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Was a guest several times a year from 1888, for example three times in 1897. He liked the city so much that he played a key role in promoting its development; perhaps also because streets and squares were festively decorated during his visits. Wiesbaden experienced a great boom during this time, became an "imperial city" and had the most millionaires in Germany at the turn of the century. The population rose from 35,500 in 1871 to 109,002 in 1910. Numerous important representative buildings were built, including the State Theater (1894), the Kurhaus (1907) and the main train station (1906).
This development also had an impact on Protestant community life in the city. In 1853, when the construction of the market church , the “ Nassauer Landesdom ” began, there were only about 9,500 Protestants. When the church opened in 1862, it was the only Protestant church in Wiesbaden. But it soon became too small. The number of parishioners rose over 23,000 in 1871 to 29,000 in 1875. In 1879 the second Protestant church, the Bergkirche, was consecrated. The Berlin architect and builder Johannes Otzen was responsible for the construction .
But the number of Protestants continued to grow. In 1880 there were already 33,500, in 1890 even 42,300. So the call for a third church soon became loud, as the smooth service in the existing churches could no longer be guaranteed. A building site was sought from the mid-1880s.
planning phase
The building program
In 1887 the city acquired suitable land at the western end of Rheinstrasse . In 1889 negotiations begin on a building program. The "Wiesbadener Program" of the Wiesbaden mountain church priest Emil Veesenmeyer (1891) was created. Johannes Otzen, with whom they had already had good experiences in building the mountain church where Veesenmeyer is pastor, was called in in 1890, also because he had been trying for a long time to develop suitable floor plans for Protestant church buildings. Otzen was subsequently commissioned to build the “ third Protestant church ” in Wiesbaden without a tender .
The building concept, which immediately became famous as the Wiesbaden program , sees the church building as the “ meeting house of the celebrating community ”, which should be characterized by a uniform space. This means that Catholic outlines that depict the Roman hierarchy are rejected. The Lord's Supper should take place “ symbolically, in the midst of the congregation ”, therefore all lines of sight should be directed towards the altar . The pulpit should be treated “ at least as equivalent to the altar. It should keep its place behind the latter and be organically connected with the organ and singing stage to be arranged in front of the community ”.
The Wiesbaden program is thus based on the Protestant worship service: Martin Luther's demand for a “ priesthood of all believers ” is being implemented architecturally, with the congregation celebrating in a common room. The medieval church depicted the difference between clergy and lay people through a wall, the so-called rood screen . The three elements altar (for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ), pulpit (for proclaiming the word in the sermon ) and organ (for music) are arranged centrally one above the other. The benches form a semicircle around these elements to ensure the best possible view. With its functional central building, Otzen thus corresponds to the slogan " form follows function " of the American architect and pioneer of modernism Henri Louis Sullivan , which he was only to shape two years after the inauguration of the Ringkirche.
Urban development problem
The following problem arose from the preferred location of the building site at the western end of Rheinstrasse: the wide boulevard should be finished with an architectural accent. A wide façade with a tower was seen as suitable for this. The tower was now in the east of the building. This was in stark contrast to the traditional construction, which envisaged the east orientation of a church, where the main entrance and the tower (s) were to be arranged in the west.
Otzen solved the problem as follows: He decided against the church's unusual but unusual westward orientation and kept the main entrance in the west. At the same time, however, from the outside it gave the impression that the church had this western orientation resulting from the urban planning arrangement and a cruciform floor plan. He achieved this by giving the east tower a representative portal on the ground floor, which only leads into a kind of anteroom. The actual central building resulting from the Wiesbaden program looks like a transept from the outside; Between this and the east tower Otzen arranged a pseudo-nave, in which, however, only side rooms and the singing gallery are housed. Finally, the entrance hall to the west gives the impression of a traditional apse from the outside.
This construction method resulted in a contradiction in direction with an outer west and an inner east orientation. Even today, a visitor who does not know the Ringkirche is inclined to look for the entrance in the east before realizing that it is on the opposite side. The interior impression of the central building, which has a much larger volume than the building would suggest from the outside, is all the more surprising.
Choice of style and material
Nothing is said about the architectural style in the Wiesbaden program, but Otzen had precise ideas about this too. In a highly acclaimed speech that he gave on August 1, 1900 at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris at an international architects' congress as President of the Akademie der Künste , he clearly opposed the mixing of architectural styles that was popular in the early days :
“ The end of the great eclectic movement of the 19th century in a mindless and senseless formalism of all styles is to be seen as a decline. To the extent that modern art combats and limits this, it should be viewed as a healthy response. "
And further: “ The building as a work of art should develop out of need, but it should also remain aware of the great task of all architectural creation, the task: to idealize the real. Just as it is reprehensible to clothe a structural task in an academic manner in an intended historical garb, it would be just as wrong to make expediency the sole guideline for the overall appearance. In both cases, no work of art is created; rather, it can only be a product of a complete and unconstrained amalgamation of all conditions, in which the result is only an uncritical feeling of the beautiful and functional. "
He advocated the “honesty” of the architectural style: “ For every building that wants to claim artistic significance, every material must be used and treated according to its peculiarity. Every architectural lie, every deliberate deception is reprehensible. The architectural jewelery should serve the characteristic material treatment. “And finally:“ The climate, the area, the rural or urban environment must be appropriately recognized in the work of architecture. "
Otzen opted for the Romanesque - Gothic “ transitional style ” for “his” Wiesbadener Ringkirche , as the late Romanesque was perceived as particularly “German” in those nationally conscious years after the founding of the empire : the origins of the Gothic were seen more in France, those of the Renaissance in Italy. The church was finally built in predominantly Romanesque forms with individual Gothic elements such as the rosettes and the ribbed vaults.
When choosing the material, Otzen initially wanted to use the red brick already used for the market and mountain churches, but the builders preferred a yellowish sandstone version. This was intended to tie in with the tradition of the Rhenish cathedrals in Speyer , Worms and Mainz , not only in terms of the architectural style, but also in terms of material.
Construction and naming
At the beginning of 1892 Otzen's plans, in which the building project was always called “ Reformation Church”, were approved by the community bodies and released for implementation. Construction began in February, but the foundation stone was not laid. On Reformation Day , October 31, 1894, the church was consecrated, which moved the whole city.
However, disputes within the community prevented the naming “ Reformation Church ”; initially the name " Neukirchengemeinde " was adopted before it was officially renamed in 1906 to the name " Ringkirchengemeinde ", which has been familiar to the population since the construction period . The sources do not substantiate what exactly the dispute was about; however, it became apparent early on when the foundation stone was not laid. Probably the Protestant denominational dispute between Lutherans and Reformed revived here; The former received their own home with the inauguration of the Luther Church in 1911.
renovation
The Ringkirche has been extensively renovated since 2002. In seven construction phases, several incorrect plans from the construction period are to be rectified. For example, the Reformation Hall on the ground floor of the east tower, which was previously only closed with a grille, was provided with a glass portal - as was originally intended by Otzen. The cardboard lids with which the sandstones of the facade were placed on top of each other are removed. The trees that were planted in the immediate vicinity of the church in the 1970s were felled because they had caused great damage: the roots had blocked water pipes, leaves had clogged gutters and drainpipes and the shade of the trees had prevented the facade from coming off the sun dries up.
The Trinitarian window program in the West, which originally symbolized the Father, Son and Holy Spirit , is also being restored. During the Third Reich , the symbol for the Creator, which corresponds to the All-Seeing Eye of Freemasonry , was replaced by a blood and floor window , which has been replaced with a reconstructed original motif since 2005.
Use and community life
Shortly after the completion of the Ringkirche, the first improvements were necessary: in 1896, among other things, the stairs were closed with a door. In 1906 cracks appeared in the pulpit wall, which resulted in it being temporarily closed due to dilapidation.
In the first few years of its existence, the Ringkirche developed into a “cathedral of the people”: the services were heavily attended and there is a socially oriented church music business, where a qualified cultural offer was developed for low-wage earners. From the First World War, the care of war orphans and the needy was added. In 1916 a kindergarten was set up under the name “ Toddler School ”, also to offer employment to mothers whose husbands were at war or died.
During the time of National Socialism , Wilhelm Merten , the first pastor to join Martin Niemöller's “ Pfarrernotbund ”, and other pastors of the Confessing Church were employed in the Ringkirche , as well as the dean Walter Mulot appointed by the Nazis . The latter was deposed in 1945 because of his ties to the regime.
In the 1950s, pastor Hugo Herfurth founded the Wiesbaden boys' choir at the Ringkirche . Today the church is still home to the largest community in Wiesbaden, even if the number of “normal” Sunday worship participants fell from around 600 in the 1960s to around 60–80 today. In addition, cultural and concerts are often organized, which attract up to 800 visitors.
From 2017 the Ringkirche will be one of the venues of the Rheingau Music Festival .
architecture
location
The Ringkirche stands on a crossing island with heavy traffic on all sides at the western end of Rheinstrasse, where it meets the Ringstrasse . With its 65-meter-high twin tower, it forms the end and climax of the broad visual axis of the Rheinstrasse, which is around one kilometer long and impresses with its magnificent facades from the Wilhelminian era.
Its location on the Ringstrasse, which has been here since the death of Emperor Friedrich III. (1831–1888) was called " Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring ", and the church soon owed the name " Ringkirche ".
Structure and appearance
The floor plan of the ring church consists of a square with a side length of 20 meters with strongly bevelled corners. This square is expanded on the four sides by conches , which have the shape of half octagons. The central vault is divided by ribs in the shape of an ax-pointed star. A gallery is housed in each of the cones, with the rectangular entrance hall adjoining it to the west.
The organ or the singing room is located on the gallery in the east cone, below the gallery is the pulpit wall with pulpit niche. Behind it are the sacristy and other side rooms, which look like a pseudo -long house from the outside , as well as the rectangular, 65 m high main tower, which splits into a twin tower in the upper area . On the ground floor of the tower, the so-called “ Reformation Hall ” opens through a large arch , which does not form the main entrance, even if it appears that way from the outside. Small stair towers are arranged on the sides of the main tower and to the north and south of the west conche.
Overall, there is a contradiction in direction with the building: from the outside it seems that the main entrance is located in the main tower located to the east, followed by a nave, which is interrupted by a transept - in fact the actual central building - and finally in one Choir or an apse - the actual entrance hall - ends. Thus Otzen was able to arrange the east tower as an architectural exclamation mark at the end of Rheinstrasse.
However, since the main entrance is in the western cone, the traditional eastern position of the pulpit and altar could be retained. However, this ingenious solution of an external westward and internal eastward orientation, resulting from the urban development situation, also called on contemporary critics, who found a pretext for rejecting the Wiesbaden program , which broke with the conservative Eisenach regulation of 1861.
Interior
The inside of the ring church forms a square, which is extended on all four sides by the half octagonal conches. The galleries for the public are housed in the west, north and south cones. The singing gallery with the organ is located in the east cone, in front of which is the pulpit wall. In each of the three conches with the public galleries there are three large, colorful round windows, and the round skylight shines in the middle of the ceiling of the main room.
The ceiling of the central square forms a uniform vault with those of the conches, which are only separated by wide belt arches. This creates a unified space; the inner square is limited only by the narrow gallery parapets. The galleries are supported by narrow columns.
The pulpit wall below the choir gallery contains a semicircular niche above which a cross-crowned gable rises. The pulpit can be reached via a double flight of stairs. To the right and left of the pulpit, three arcades break through the wall. The altar stands on a semicircular platform in front of the pulpit wall. The benches are arranged in a semicircle around the pedestal like in an ancient theater. The rows of benches on the galleries, on the other hand, are aligned with the straight line of the parapets.
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The walls of the interior are plastered and painted with ornaments; the sandstone only emerges in a few places. The Ostkonche has the richest jewelry.
Equipment elements
window
The ring church has three colorful round windows each in the north, south and west cone as well as a large round window as a skylight in the center of the dome. The windows in the conches show the sun and moon in the south under the sign of the Christ monogram , in the north the chalice and book for the Lord's Supper and scriptures as basic elements of Protestantism and finally in the east the Holy Trinity : on the left a dove as a symbol for the Holy Spirit , on the right the Lamb of God with the victory flag as a sign for Jesus Christ and in the middle the watchful eye of God. The round window embedded in the vaulted ceiling is a special feature: the steel roof turret is located directly above it; To the side of this, there are glass openings in the roof cladding through which the light can fall on the round window below. Originally, Otzen wanted to arrange the central lighting for the entire interior of the church here, but this failed with the technology available at the time. The skylight gives a soft golden light.
organ
The organ on the gallery in the east cone of the Ringkirche was built in 1894 by Eberhard Friedrich Walcker . The instrument had 30 registers on two manuals and pedal and pneumatic action. The prospectus was created by the Neugebauer brothers (Wiesbaden). Most of the organ has been preserved in its original form. 75 percent of the pipe material comes from Walcker, so that the sound of the instrument largely corresponds to that of the construction time. In 1949 the organ was rearranged by Walcker. In 1955 the instrument was electrified by the Steinmeyer organ builder, and the console was also rebuilt. In addition, a Rückpositiv was installed on the opposite gallery as the first manual . In 2014 a comprehensive restoration of the organ was planned, whereby the instrument should apparently be returned to its original condition. The restoration was completed in December 2016.
The organ currently has the following disposition:
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- Coupling : I / II, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
- Remarks:
- W = historical pipe inventory from Walcker
- S = register from Steinmeyer (1955)
Appreciation
- On June 30, 2003, the Ringkirche was declared a German National Monument. In the justification, the "national cultural significance" of Wiesbaden's "most important church in terms of architectural history" was emphasized, which, with "its almost textbook-like implementation of the urban planning task for historical urban planning, represents an exemplary achievement of German urban planning at that time."
- Making itself the city of Wiesbaden in the list of the important example of historicism World Heritage of UNESCO to register the ring church plays a central role along with the other large city churches.
attachment
Data
| architect | Johannes Otzen |
| construction manager | JJ Lieblein, later Friedrich Grün |
| start of building | 1892 |
| Date of inauguration | October 31, 1894 (Reformation Day) |
| Estimated construction costs | 580,000 marks |
| Final construction costs | 654,527 marks |
| Original seat number | 1,360 |
| Today's number of seats | 1,032 |
| Height of the east tower | 65 m |
timeline
- 1890: Demand for a third Protestant church in Wiesbaden.
- 1892: construction of the Ringkirche begins; there will be no official laying of the foundation stone.
- 1894, October 31: Inauguration of the Ringkirche.
- 1897: Improvements to the building become necessary.
- 1898: Moving into the rectory at An der Ringkirche 3, which houses a parish hall, two parish apartments and a sexton apartment.
- 1902: Static repairs to the altar wall after cracks appeared; the Ringkirche will be closed for a short time for security reasons.
- 1906: Renaming of the " Neukirchengemeinde " to " Ringkirchengemeinde ".
- 1916: A “ toddler school ” is set up in the community hall for the children of fathers who died in the First World War ; later this will become a kindergarten.
- 1920: The last bronze bell is replaced by steel bells from Bochum's cast steelworks . There are now three bells in the tones a °, c¹ and es¹ (today they sound a semitone lower: g sharp °, h °, d¹).
- 1931: The Ringkirchen kindergarten is relocated to Klarenthaler Straße 31.
- 1942: The kindergarten is taken over by the NS-Volkswohlfahrt .
- 1945: The Ringkirchen pastor Walter Mulot is relieved of his office together with 43 other pastors in the area of the Hesse-Nassau church because of ties to the Nazi regime .
- 1966: The Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 5 building is acquired as a new parish hall.
- 1988: During renovation work on the roof of the Ringkirche, a freight elevator crashes: two people die and two others are critically injured.
- 1994: The Ringkirche celebrates its 100th anniversary.
- 2003: Appointment of the Ringkirche as a German National Monument .
literature
- Baedeker Wiesbaden Rheingau , Karl Baedeker GmbH, Ostfildern-Kemnat, 2001, ISBN 3-87954-076-4
- Gottfried Kiesow: The misunderstood century. Historicism using the example of Wiesbaden , German Foundation for Monument Protection, 2005, ISBN 3-936942-53-6
- Ralf-Andreas Gmelin: The Cathedral of the Little People - A Wiesbaden Birthplace of Modernism , Ring Edition Wiesbaden, published on behalf of the church council, 2nd edition, 2004-Verlag, 2019
- Manfred Gerber, Axel Sawert: In war and peace. The Wiesbadener Ringkirche, a monument of historicism , Societäts Verlag 2019 (i. E.)
Individual evidence
- ^ Rheingau Music Festival under the motto "Departure". Verlagsgruppe Rhein Main GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz, February 20, 2017, accessed on February 20, 2017 .
- ↑ On organ renovation ; see. also the subpage to the organ sponsorships.
- ↑ Back to the timbres of 1894 in FAZ of December 23, 2016, page 41.
- ↑ More information about the organ
Web links
- Website of the community
- Lecture by Johannes Otzen on August 1, 1900 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris
- The Ringkirche in www.kirchenbau-dokumentation.de (KIDOK)
Church of Peace (1898–1900) | Bergkirche (1876–1879) | St. Boniface (1844–1849) | Trinity Church (1908–1912) | English Church (1863–1865) | Maria-Hilf-Kirche (1893–1895) | Market Church (1853–1862) | Orange Memorial Church (1902–1905) | Ringkirche (1892–1894) | Russian Church (1847–1855)
Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 38 ″ N , 8 ° 13 ′ 46 ″ E