St. Gertrud (Cologne)
St. Gertrud is a Catholic parish church in the Agnesviertel of northern Cologne Neustadt in the immediate vicinity of the railway embankment. It was designed by the architect Gottfried Böhm in 1960 and built between 1962 and 1965. In 1967 the architect received the Cologne Architecture Prize for the building in the brutalist style with its asymmetrical shapes and the concrete construction .
Location and building history
As early as 1953, the municipality of St. Agnes bought a building plot in the rather simple residential area between Krefelder Strasse and the railway embankment, a vacant lot only 62 meters wide. When the parish of St. Gertrud was split off from St. Agnes as an independent parish in 1960, the church council commissioned Gottfried Böhm to design a new church with a parish center on the property that had already been acquired.
After construction began in 1962, the foundation stone was laid in 1963, a rock monolith made from Westerwald trachyte . St. Gertrud was consecrated on October 13, 1965 and handed over to the community.
Building description
The church building is based on a versatile and angled base area that jumps back and forth several times. High walls made of exposed aggregate concrete on the outside merge directly into the pointed, pleated roof construction. The 40-meter-high tower, the ground floor of which forms a Lady Chapel, stands separately to the north on a pentagonal base and flows smoothly into the triangular surfaces of its top.
On the street to the east, three high chapel extensions protrude from the church, which end in pointed gables. The northernmost protrusion forms the entrance area, the middle the baptismal font and the southernmost the sacrament chapel with the tabernacle . The choir bulges to the south. The west side borders the railway line.
The interior of St. Gertrud is sparingly lit and creates a cave-like atmosphere with its coarse, nested walls made of coarse washed and exposed concrete , which merge steeply and openly into the open roof space. The monolithic foundation stone from 1963 is embedded in the wall and is visible both on the outside and on the inside, where it serves as a holy water font.
The red brick floor is divided into two levels: on one level, a corridor leads from the organ gallery along the chapel niches to the large choir, above which the room is lost in the dark. The actual community room is four steps lower in the middle and is spanned across the choir by the three prism-shaped ceiling riders that converge towards the west.
Below the choir there is a crypt in the basement , which is equipped with a way of the cross by Richard Seewald .
Furnishing
Almost all of the furnishings - the baptismal font, tabernacle and altar right through to the portal and weather vane - were designed by Gottfried Böhm. Böhm also created the three gable windows with floral motifs; further windows come from Fritz H. Lauten and H. Eck. Robert Hieronymi created a large painting of the Ascension of Christ in 1912.
In addition to several other wooden sculptures, there is a late Gothic sculpture of the church's patroness, Saint Gertrude von Nivelles , with her attributes: the abbess's staff and three mice in the sacrament chapel.
A single bell has been hanging in the church tower since 1960 , which was on loan in St. Agnes after the war. It is a loan bell that originally hung in Schillersdorf in Upper Silesia. It was cast by Franziskus Stancke in Troppau in 1764 . It has the strike tone G sharp 1 and weighs about 540 kg with a lower diameter of 990 mm. The bell bears the following Latin inscription: “Nox claræ turrim campanas fulmine sternit anno 1764. Destruit has ignis dedit et claræ organa vocis! Hæc campana a Francisko Stanke Oppaviæ refusa est. "
Current usage
Since 1989 the parish, which had been independent since 1973, was again connected to the parish of St. Agnes. Since January 1st, 2010 the parishes of St. Kunibert, St. Gertrud, St. Ursula and St. Agnes have been merged into one parish. The church, which was seldom used after pastor Karl Falke, who after his time as chaplain to St. Agnes until he was 80, was used less often, is intended to be a place of encounter, prayer and cultural debate. Appropriate considerations were made for this purpose, which led to a concept for the church interior in which the church remains consecrated.
The st. gertrud: church + culture for several years. It works with the special features of this church: Its interior is explored with various artistic performances that deal with the space itself and put it into a dialogue. The space as a special sacred place - with art exhibitions, concerts, dance and theater projects - evokes discussions and conversations and thoughts that often arise during the events or directly after them in st.gertrud: kirche + kultur.
The special acoustics of the church are also used by the Cologne Obertonchor for rehearsals.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.koelnarchitektur.de/pages/de/news-archive/11196.htm
- ↑ Research Center stained glass of the 20 CENTURY eV: Research Center stained glass of the 20th century eV July 8th 2008, accessed on July 6, 2020 .
- ^ Gerhard Hoffs: Bell music of Catholic churches in Cologne . PDF document, p. 119f. ( Memento from April 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The future of St. Gertrud
- ^ Catholic parish of St. Agnes Cologne: st. gertrud: church + culture. In: https://gemeinden.erzbistum-koeln.de/st-agnes-koeln/kirchen/st_gertrud/ . St. Agnes Catholic Parish Cologne, June 7, 2020, accessed on June 7, 2020 .
- ^ Obertonchor Cologne, rehearsals
literature
- Helmut Fussbroich : Architekturführer Köln Vol. 3 Sacral buildings after 1900 2005, pp. 198–199, ISBN 3-7616-1683-X .
- Hiltrud Kier , Hans Georg Esch : Churches in Cologne . 2000, pp. 208-211, ISBN 3-7616-1395-4 .
- Manfred Becker-Huberti, Günter A. Menne (ed.): Cologne churches. The churches of the Catholic and Protestant communities in Cologne . 2004, p. 65, ISBN 3-7616-1731-3 .
- Barbara Kahle: Rhenish churches of the 20th century . State Conservator Rhineland (Ed.)
- Toni Feldenkirchen, Helmut Signon: neue kölner kirchen o. J., Cologne Tourist Office (ed.)
Web links
- Information from the Archdiocese of Cologne on the Church of St. Gertrud
- Flyer from the Archdiocese on various uses and architecture
- Exhibitions in St. Gertrud
Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 6.9 ″ N , 6 ° 57 ′ 6.5 ″ E