St. Antonius (Düsseldorf city center)

Franciscan Church of St. Antonius, 2009

The former monastery church of the Franciscan Order in Düsseldorf was consecrated to Saint Anthony of Padua and served the Franciscans from 1853 and 1955 to 2014. It stood at the intersection of Oststraße / Immermannstraße in downtown Düsseldorf not far from the main train station and was demolished in 2017 for the construction of a residential high-rise .

Prehistory 1651–1804

A first Franciscan monastery was founded in Düsseldorf in 1651 on the site of today's Maxkirche , which was built as a monastery church in 1735–1737. The monastery was closed in 1804 in the course of secularization .

First construction in 1855

After the return of the Franciscans in 1853, the predecessor building of the St. Antonius monastery church was built at another location in Düsseldorf from 1855 to 1856 according to designs by the monastery brother Paschalis Gratze in the neo-Gothic style. In the first construction phase the church and part of the Franciscan monastery were built, in a second construction phase the south and west wings of the monastery were built. The church was single-nave. The building materials were bricks and house stones. The street side was faced with brick.

In 1875, 39 Franciscans lived in the monastery: seven fathers, 13 fratres and 19 lay brothers. The building was completely destroyed in World War II.

Oststrasse, Marienkirche (left) and Franziskanerklosterkirche (right), before 1909
Interior of the church, 1904
Floor plan of the monastery and the monastery church, 1904

Second construction in 1955

The second building of the Antonius Church of the Franciscans was built in 1955 based on a design by Heinz Thoma . It was a “bright hall church” which, with “its breadth and simplicity, was completely [...] committed to the tradition of the medieval Church of the Friars Minor”.

The Lady Chapel was on the left side of the hall. This was separated from the main building by glass panes. Eucharistic celebrations and daily prayers took place there on weekdays. Two confessionals in the chapel have been redesigned into "discussion rooms".

In accordance with the order's vow of poverty, the hall church was built simply and without frills. In order to at least echo the claim of St. Francis that his brothers should not build houses out of stone, the roof was made as a wooden roof.

The west facade of the church building was structured with honeycomb concrete windows. The windows were adorned with ten symbol stones, which refer to "the Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, valor, moderation) and the three Christian virtues (faith, hope, love)". The reliefs and the tower cock were kept after the demolition. A planned installation by Christian Odzuck "Ultra ex Orbit" near the main train station was canceled during construction in July 2018 for technical reasons.

Modern times

In Advent 2014 the Franciscans left the monastery and moved to the nearby Marienkirche .

Br. Firminus Wickenhäuser , who died in the call of holiness and whose bones had rested in the crypt of the old monastery church for decades , was transferred to St. Mary's Church in a solemn procession at the beginning of 2015.

The Franciscan monastery, which was otherwise in need of renovation, was demolished in 2017 along with the church. A high-rise building is being built on the site.

literature

Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 96 (Fig. 87 Church and Monastery of the Franciscans, Fig. 88 Interior of the Franciscan Monastery Church) and p. 98 (description).
Manfred Becker-Huberti (Ed.): Düsseldorf churches. The Catholic churches in the city dean of Düsseldorf. JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7616-2219-3 .