St. Thomas Church (Augsburg)

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St. Thomas Church, 2013

St. Thomas is a Protestant church in the Bavarian city ​​of Augsburg . It is located in the west of the city in the Kriegshaber district and was built in 1961 in the modern style. Its round bell tower , which can be seen from afar and is unique in Augsburg, is striking . The church and the adjoining, former parish and parsonage (today the parish center ) have been a listed building since 2003 .

history

inside view

In the 19th century, the Protestant Christians in the then still independent local community of Kriegshaber did not have their own house of worship . From 1845 the evangelical parish of the village belonged to the Augsburg parish Heilig Kreuz and was looked after from there. In 1908 a Protestant association was founded to build a community hall in Kriegshaber. In 1916 the suburb of Kriegshaber came to the city of Augsburg. In the 1920s, the association ensured the creation of community rooms and a Diakoniestation in the new district of Kriegshaber. In 1940 the congregation acquired a church building site on Osterfeld; In 1946 she became the vicariate of St. Johannes in the neighboring district of Augsburg-Oberhausen and in 1949 its daughter parish . A church building association was also founded in 1949 .

In 1951 an emergency church was built in the immediate vicinity of today's St. Thomas Church . In 1955 the Protestant community of Kriegshaber became an exposed vicariate and in 1959 an independent parish . The new construction of the St. Thomas Church and the attached parish and rectory took place from 1960 to 1961 according to the plans of the Munich architect Olaf Andreas Gulbransson . The inauguration took place on September 24, 1961, the church was consecrated to the Apostle Thomas . Gulbransson was a proven representative of modernism and had become known in Bavaria since the early 1950s for a number of trend-setting Protestant church buildings. He died in a car accident in July 1961 and did not live to see the inauguration of the " St. Thomas Church" in Kriegshaber - as did numerous other church buildings he planned and posthumously completed throughout Germany.

In 1966 the church received an organ .

In 1969 the wooden ceiling of the church had to be renewed, after which several renovations were due. In 1983 the church was completely renovated. In 1999 the directly adjoining parish and rectory was renovated according to plans by the Augsburg architects' office Walloschke and converted into a community center and expanded.

In 2003 the church was placed under monument protection together with the ground-level bar of the former parish and rectory.

St. Thomas is considered to be "the most important new church of modernism in Augsburg".

Church building

location

The St. Thomas Church is located at Rockensteinstraße 21 in Augsburg-Kriegshaber - on the northern edge of the Osterfeldpark, which was created after the construction of the bypass road ( Bundesstraße 17 ) on the former football field of TSV Kriegshaber.

architecture

The open " tent architecture" and the play with basic geometric shapes are characteristic of the work and the church buildings of the architect Olaf Andreas Gulbransson . He built the Church of St. Thomas as an open tent architecture over a triangular floor plan and with a closing folding roof . The plan forms an equilateral triangle , the symbol for the Triune God ; with bevelled corners in which the chancel and the window walls are arranged. Next to the church is a round campanile . In a single-storey low-rise building, which is directly connected to the intermediate entrance building of the church, the parish room, parish office and parsonage were originally housed. The buildings were designed as a solid exposed brick construction with in-situ concrete façade parts.

For Gulbransson, the tent was a symbol of people's “being guests” on earth, and he wanted to remind them of the pen tent of the Old Testament . Through his church architecture, he arranged the pastor and parish in an open (semicircle) circle to one another, as was the case with “his” St. Thomas Church in Augsburg. Gulbransson mimicked a group that forms around a speaker. As with his other church buildings, the altar , pulpit and baptismal font are arranged centrally. In addition, the pulpit is almost on the same level as the benches of the congregation and thus corresponds to the understanding that “the pastor does not preach from above like a teacher”.

The worship room of the “simple preaching church restricted to the essentials by Gulbransson ” has 400 seats. The church is accessed via a small intermediate building on the side of the triangle opposite the chancel. It also serves as access to the community center, which after renovation and expansion in 1999 includes a larger hall with 100 seats and a smaller hall with 50 seats.

  • View from the northeast of the church and grounds

  • Bell tower and western window wall

  • Western window wall

  • Intermediate entrance building (west side)

  • Information signs on the church

  • Stairway

  • Window (interior view)

Furnishing

  • The altar wall was a large fresco in fresco-secco technique designed that dominates the sanctuary. It shows the "encounter between Jesus and the unbelieving Thomas " and comes from the Munich painter and graphic artist Hubert Distler , with whom Gulbransson often worked.
  • In addition, the interior is characterized by the altar, the baptismal font and the pulpit, which were made from Nagelfluh stone.
  • From 2001 to 2008, the church was newly or additionally furnished with various works by the artist Johannes Hirschler: a wooden lectern , five parament designs for the altar and pulpit, which are currently (2017) only partially implemented, and an Easter candle holder ; furthermore an altar cross , the Gospel panel, ensure two altar candlesticks and two seven-branched candlestick of bronze .

organ

Prospectus of the Schmid organ

The organ was built in 1966 by Gerhard Schmid with 22 stops on two manuals and a pedal . In 1993 it was rebuilt by the builder company and added a register (Weidenpfeife 8 ′). The main mechanism and pedal mechanism are housed in two trapezoidal housings on the south wall, while the three-axis back positive is embedded in the gallery parapet. The instrument has a mechanical game and register action with slider drawers . The then organist Günter Scharbert largely designed the neo-baroque sound structure, which is based on the organ movement . While the main work has individual flute parts in addition to the fully developed principal choir, the Rückpositiv serves as a solo work. The disposition is as follows:

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
Wooden dacked 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Little Pomeranian 2 ′
Octave 1'
Cymbel III 1 ⁄ 2 ′
Krummhorn 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
Gedacktpommer 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Pointed flute 8th'
Willow pipe 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Reed flute 4 ′
Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Gemshorn 2 ′
third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Mixture IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Pedal C – f 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Dacked bass 8th'
Chorale bass 4 ′
Pipe whistle 2 ′
Octave 1'
Horn bass V 5 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Trumpet 8th'

Bells

The five-part bell ringing comes from the earlier Karl Czudnochowsky bell foundry in Erding . The five bells were cast in 1960. They are made to vibrate by ringing machines from the Hörz company.

The parish of St. Thomas

The "Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Thomas" in Augsburg-Kriegshaber belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELKB). Acting pastor is Dietrich Tiggemann (as of 2017).

The community has two churches in the district - the St. Thomas Church and, since 2003, the St. Thomas Chapel .

In 1997 the congregation had around 2,300 members, by the end of 2009 it had grown to almost 3,000 members.

St. Thomas Chapel

St. Thomas Chapel, 2015

The St. Thomas Chapel is a former American church that was built in 1954 for the families of soldiers belonging to the US troops stationed in Augsburg for many years after the Second World War . It is located at Columbusstrasse 7 on the corner of Hooverstrasse in the previously sealed off housing estate Cramerton in Kriegshaber, one of a total of four former housing estates (" Housing Areas ") of the US garrison Augsburg in the west of Augsburg and on the outskirts of the neighboring town of Stadtbergen . The US garrison in Augsburg existed until 1998 and was completely abandoned by the Americans. World icon

The church buildings - like the other infrastructure buildings (schools, kindergartens, shops, etc.) and the apartments in the " Housing Areas " - were built by the Americans according to standardized floor plans. The chapel in the Cramerton settlement had around 350 seats and could be used by all represented religious communities . After the Americans left in 1998, the church building initially served as a meeting point for various social institutions, and from the end of 2000 there were regular church services there. The chapel was renovated and rebuilt until 2003 , after which the parish of St. Thomas took over the former American church. The St. Thomas Chapel was inaugurated in March 2003.

Church uses

The St. Thomas Church is used by the parish of St. Thomas both for church services and, together with the adjoining community center and the outdoor facilities, for various events and community life.

The St. Thomas Chapel is also used for church services as well as for meetings of congregation and guest groups and for events organized by social organizations, etc. Church services for people with disabilities and their families are also held there on a regular basis .

Appearance of the Ecumenical sign choir Augsburg at St. Thomas Church (before the altar wall) at the service of the deaf community, 2013

Host communities in St. Thomas are also:

  • the deaf congregation Augsburg and the surrounding area of the Evangelical Lutheran Sign Language Church Congregation in Bavaria (EGG Bayern) (formerly Evangelical Lutheran Deaf Congregation in Bavaria ) - it uses both the St. Thomas Church and the attached community center including outdoor facilities as well as the St. -Thomas-Chapel regularly for church services and their parish life as well as for smaller and larger events.
  • the Lithuanian parish of Augsburg - it meets regularly for church services in the St. Thomas Church.

literature

  • Walter Scheidler: Augsburg churches . Presse-Druck- und Verlags-GmbH, Augsburg 1980, p. 27 ff .
  • Horst Jesse: The history of the Evangelical Church in Augsburg . Ludwig, Pfaffenhofen 1983, ISBN 3-7787-2054-6 , p. 436 ff .
  • Evangelical Lutheran Parish Office St. Thomas (Ed.): 25 years St. Thomas Church in Augsburg . Self-published, Augsburg 1986.
  • Christian R. Kreikle: warrior . District on the edge . In: Wolfgang Kučera u. a. (Ed.): Augsburg on foot. 16 city tours through history and the present . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-87975-628-7 , p. 197-207 .
  • Claudia Fuchs, Anton Fuchs: Churches in Augsburg. Past and present . Verlags-Gemeinschaft Augsbuch, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-938332-04-2 , p. 120 ff., 128 .
  • Robert Stalla (Ed.): Olaf Andreas Gulbransson (1916–1961). Church buildings in Bavaria . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-03096-1 , pp. 32-35, u. a. m .
  • Evangelical Lutheran Congregation St. Thomas (Ed.): 50 years of St. Thomas . Self-published, Augsburg 2011.

Web links

Commons : St. Thomas Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Evangelical Lutheran Congregation St. Thomas (Ed.): 50 years of St. Thomas . Self-published, Augsburg 2011, p. 9-19 .
  2. ↑ a b c Robert Stalla (Ed.): Olaf Andreas Gulbransson (1916–1961). Church buildings in Bavaria . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-03096-1 , pp. 8 ff., 32-35, u. a. m .
  3. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Congregation St. Thomas (ed.): Festschrift of the Evangelical St. Thomas Congregation Augsburg for the consecration of the organ on May 22, 1966 . Self-published, Augsburg 1966.
  4. ↑ St. Thomas Church. In: st-thomas-augsburg.de. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  5. ↑ See flyer of the community building association of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation St. Thomas, Augsburg (PDF file; accessed on September 5, 2017)
  6. ^ Organ database Bavaria online , accessed on September 5, 2017.
  7. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Congregation St. Thomas (Ed.): 50 years of St. Thomas. Self-published, Augsburg 2011.
  8. ↑ Saint Thomas in Augsburg-Kriegshaber. In: augsburgwiki.de. Augsburg Wiki, accessed on September 5, 2017 .
  9. ↑ a b St Thomas Chapel. In: st-thomas-augsburg.de. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Worship service with people with disabilities. In: st-thomas-augsburg.de. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Deaf community. In: st-thomas-augsburg.de. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  12. ^ Evangelical Lutheran. Sign-language church community in Bavaria >>  Augsburg. In: egg-bayern.de. Retrieved September 6, 2017 .
  13. ^ Lithuanian community. In: st-thomas-augsburg.de. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 22 ′ 45.18 "  N , 10 ° 51 ′ 29.18"  E