St. Bonifatius (Forest)
St. Bonifatius a Roman Catholic branch church in the Aachen district of Forst in the city region of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia .
The building was designed by the well-known architect Rudolf Schwarz and is entered in the list of architectural monuments in Aachen-Forst and dedicated to St. Consecrated to Boniface . The church belongs to the parish of St. Katharina , Forst.
location
The church building is located on Mataréstraße in Forst, not far from the Rothe Erde train station .
history
Around 1900 the area north of Forst, also called Unterforst, was gradually settled. On December 21, 1902, residents founded the St. Nikolaus Church Building Association. The name Nikolaus results from a Nikolauskapelle existing in Unterforst. Hermann Joseph Sträter , Joseph Fischer and Father Nickes provided land and funds for a church to be built. In 1914 the population had increased so much that an emergency church had to be set up in the kindergarten . After the First World War , a new emergency church was built, but it looked more like a barrack. In 1926 a chaplaincy was built in Zeppelinstrasse and a real church was supposed to be built in the following years. When the National Socialists came to power, building a new church became almost impossible, and in 1937 the government refused the building permit.
Only after the Second World War and the fall of the Third Reich could the church building plans be resumed. First the chaplaincy, which had been destroyed in the war, was rebuilt and on June 5, 1953 the Rectorate St. Bonifatius was established within the parish of St. Catherine. This gave Unterforst independence in terms of property law. On November 1st, Unterforst was finally completely separated from the parish of St. Katharina and raised to an independent parish . In 1963/64 the church could finally be built. On January 1, 2010, the parish of St. Bonifatius was dissolved and reassigned as a subsidiary parish to the parish of St. Katharina.
Building history
The barrack built after the First World War was replaced in 1951 by a new emergency church in a new barrack. On May 11, 1952, the new emergency church was consecrated. In 1960 the Cologne architect Rudolf Schwarz was won over to plan a new church building. In 1960 he submitted the drafts. Construction finally began in 1963 and the Bonifatius Church was completed in 1964. On May 3, 1964, the solemn church consecration took place. The architect Rudolf Schwarz did not live to see the construction of the Bonifatiuskirche. He died on April 3, 1961, at the age of only 63.
In 1986 the church in the west was expanded to include a working day chapel, the Hermann Josef Chapel . The plans for this were made by the Cologne architect Maria Schwarz in collaboration with the architect Erwin Drese from Cologne.
Building description
St. Bonifatius is a rectangular, 22 × 28 m large hall building in modern forms made of a concrete skeleton, which is filled with bricks. In the area of the roof or the ceiling, the building is divided into six equal-sized rectangles. The middle rectangles are taller than the outer ones. This results in continuous light strips in the form of an upper aisle . There are 360 seats available for the faithful.
Furnishing
There is modern equipment in the interior. The altar is made of bluestone and was made in 1964. The font was also carved from bluestone. The tabernacle behind the altar is a work by the Kohlscheider artist Peter Bücken. He also made the gilded brass altar cross. The protective coat Madonna, cast in concrete, was made by the Aachen sculptor Erika Vonhoff . Oldest pieces of equipment are from the Allgäu originating Pietà in wood from the 16th century and a Christ-corpus from the 17th century. The artist Egino Weinert from Cologne designed the Apostle Crosses. Weinert also designed the altar in the Hermann Josef Chapel and the ambo . The stained glass windows were made by the company Dr. H. Oidtmann from Linnich and designed by Maria Katzgrau .
Pastor
The following pastors (rectors until 1960) worked as pastors to St. Boniface until the parish was dissolved in 2010:
| from ... to | Surname |
|---|---|
| 1953-1961 | Heinrich Pannhausen |
| 1965-2010 | Hermann Josef Kaiser |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bischöfliches Generalvikariat (ed.): Handbuch des Bistums Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 88.
- ↑ Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Handbuch des Bistums Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 89.
- ↑ Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Handbook of the Diocese of Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 91.
- ↑ Aachen-Forst, Catholic Church of St. Bonifatius. In: Internet site Forschungsstelle Glasmalerei des 20. Jahrhundert eV Accessed on November 14, 2017 .
- ↑ Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Handbuch des Bistums Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 89.
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 11.1 ″ N , 6 ° 7 ′ 15.1 ″ E